geriatric

UK/ˌdʒɛɹ.iˈæt.ɹɪk/US/ˌdʒɛɹ.iˈæt.ɹɪk/

adjectiveC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechneutraltechnical · an editor’s judgement

Geriatric means of very old people and their medical care. A clinical word, and an insult when it escapes the clinic.

Geriatric medicine is a real and demanding specialism dealing with the particular ways illness presents in old age. The word is entirely neutral there. Used about a person outside medicine it is offensive, and used about an object it is mocking, so a geriatric photocopier is one nobody has replaced. Many hospitals now say care of the elderly precisely to avoid the second sense.

Definitions of geriatric

1adjectivegeriatricRelating to the medical care of old people.C2
“She works on the geriatric ward at the county hospital.”

Where it comes from

From geriatrics. by surface analysis, γῆρας + -iatric.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 35 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

geriatric in the wild

Geriatrics, or geriatric medicine, is a medical specialty focused on addressing the unique health needs of older adults.
Geriatrics
There is a distinction between geriatrics and gerontology.
Geriatrics
Geriatric psychiatry as a subspecialty has significant overlap with the specialties of geriatric medicine, behavioral neurology, neuropsychiatry, neurology, and general psychiatry.
Geriatric psychiatry
Geriatric anesthesia (or geriatric anaesthesia) is the branch of medicine that studies anesthesia approach in elderly.
Geriatric anesthesia
From 1948 until 2005, the site was also a geriatric hospital, for many of those years being the major geriatric hospital in South West England.
Blackberry Hill Hospital

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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.

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