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emphysema

UK/ˌɛmfɪˈsiːmə/US/ˌɛmfɪˈsimə/
nounC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,279 of 15,258neutraltechnical · an editor’s judgement

Emphysema is a lung condition that leaves somebody permanently short of breath. The tiny air sacs break down and stop working.

Those sacs, the alveoli, are where oxygen crosses into the blood, and once they are destroyed they do not come back, which is why the damage is permanent. Smoking is the main cause. It is one of the two conditions grouped under COPD, alongside chronic bronchitis. The word is Greek and means an inflation, which describes the over-stretched lung exactly.

Yale Rosen from USA · CC BY-SA 2.0

Definitions of emphysema

  1. 1nounemphysemaA lung disease in which the air sacs are damaged, causing breathlessness.C1

    “He was diagnosed with emphysema in his sixties.”

Where it comes from

Emphysema is a puffing up. Greek emphȳsaō meant to inflate, and the Latin form meant simply a swelling, which is the lungs over-inflated and unable to empty.

  1. Middle French

    emphysema

  2. Ancient Greek

    ἐμφῡ́σημα

  3. Latin

    emphȳsēma — swelling

  4. English, today

    emphysema

Built from

  • ἐμφῡσάω · Ancient Greek — to puff up

Multiple origins. Partially from post-Classical Latin emphȳsēma (“swelling”), from Ancient Greek ἐμφῡ́σημα, from ἐμφῡσάω (“to puff up”). Also borrowed from Middle French emphysema, from the same Latin source; compare French emphysème. Attested from the late 16th century.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 2 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

emphysema in the wild

  • When the condition is caused by surgery it is called surgical emphysema.

    Subcutaneous emphysema

  • Combined pulmonary fibrosis and emphysema (CPFE), describes a medical syndrome involving both pulmonary fibrosis and emphysema.

    Combined pulmonary fibrosis and emphysema

  • Without COPD, the finding of emphysema on a CT lung scan still confers a higher mortality risk in tobacco smokers.

    Emphysema

  • There are also a number of associated conditions, including bullous emphysema, focal emphysema, and Ritalin lung.

    Emphysema

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.