Your gullet is the tube that carries food from your mouth down to your stomach. When you swallow a bite of sandwich or a gulp of water, it travels through your gullet on its way to being digested. Scientists call this tube the esophagus, but gullet is a more everyday word people have used for a long time.

The gullet is surprisingly strong and clever. It doesn't just let food fall down like a pipe: muscles in the gullet walls squeeze and push in waves, moving food downward even if you're upside down. That's why astronauts can eat and drink in zero gravity, and why you could theoretically swallow while doing a handstand.

When people say something is hard to swallow or “sticks in their gullet,” they often mean an idea or fact that's difficult to accept. A student might find it hard to accept that they lost a fair competition, and you could say the loss “stuck in their gullet.” The phrase captures that uncomfortable feeling of something you don't want to take in but have to.