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Either the thymus gland or the pancreas, the former being called neck, or throat, sweetbread, the latter belly sweetbread. The sweetbreads of ruminants, esp. of the calf, are highly esteemed as food. See Pancreas, and Thymus.

The sweetbread.

A small slice of meat; a piece of flesh. God knows thou art a collop of my flesh. Shak. Sweetbread and collops were with skewers pricked. Dryden.

The sweetbread of a deer. Cotgrave.

The sweetbread, a gland connected with the intestine of nearly all vertebrates. It is usually elongated and light-colored, and its secretion, called the pancreatic juice, is discharged, often together with the bile, into the upper part of the intestines, and is a powerful aid in digestion. See Illust. of Digestive appa…

ng region, of nearly all vertebrates. In man and other mammals it is the throat, or neck, sweetbread, which lies in the upper part of the thorax and lower part of the throat. It is largest in fetal and early life, and disappears or becomes rudimentary in the adult.