Definition of "cochlea" [coch•le•a]

• A spiral-shaped cavity of the inner ear that resembles a snail shell and contains nerve endings essential for hearing. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Within in the inner ear is a snail-shaped structure called the cochlea, which is filled with fluid and lined with cells called hair cells."
• "Critics had argued that there was no way to thread electrodes into the tight spiral of the cochlea, which is an inch and a half deep inside the skull and the size of a pea."
• "Why I am deaf is a complicated matter of heredity, forty years of rock and roll and E. Power Biggs, and the departure of tiny little hairs that are supposed to cover my cochlea, which is basically a bone inside my head."