What are "arteries"?

What are "arteries"?

It's important to know what blood vessels we are talking about when we talk about heart disease and blood vessel disease and people often don't know what the terms mean. Arteries are the blood vessels that take blood away from the heart to the tissues. Arteries supply the tissues. So when the heart pumps blood out, it pumps it out through the largest artery, the aorta, and then into many other arteries: arteries to the kidneys, arteries to the muscles, arteries to the stomach, arteries to the heart itself. Arteries then break down into tinier little branches, just like a river has tiny branches and those arterioles actually are right down in the tissue providing the blood supply.