INFUNDIBULUM/ɪnfʌnˈdɪbjʊləm/

A funnel-shaped cavity.

It’s the Latin word for a funnel, derived from infundere, “to pour”, plus the ending –bulum which formed the names of instruments. In English, it turns up in various anatomical contexts for something funnel-shaped. For example, in the human body it describes the outermost section of the fallopian tubes, a structure in the cochlea of the ear, and a formation in the brain close to the pituitary, among others. Science-fiction fans may have come across the splendid phrase chronosynclastic infundibulum that was invented by Kurt Vonnegut in The Sirens of Titan, which he explained, perhaps less than helpfully, as being “those places ... where all the different kinds of truths fit together”. The plural is infundibula and the adjective these days is usually infundibular, but others such as infundibuliform and infundibulate have also been used from time to time.

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