means The tube running from your throat to your lungs that carries air in and out — the trachea, in clinical terms.

from A plain Germanic compound, exactly what it says on the tin: 'wind' (Old English 'wind,' air in motion) plus 'pipe' (Old English 'pipe,' a tube, borrowed early from Latin 'pipa,' a reed or flute that whistles when you blow through it). So the windpipe is literally the pipe the wind goes through — English at its most honest, naming the body the way a plumber names a fitting.