You searched for: “triage
triage (tree AHZH)
The screening and classification of wounded, sick, or injured patients during war or another disaster to determine priority needs and thereby ensure the most efficient use of medical and surgical manpower, equipment, and facilities.

This word is here only because it should be known that it has no etymological connection with the Greek-Latin element tri, “three”.

Triage is a borrowing from Old French trier to "pick, sift, cull" and then from French triage, "a picking out, sorting" then to an act of "sorting according to kind and quality". In World War I, triage was adopted as a military term for the sorting of wounded soldiers into three groups according to the urgency of their injuries on the basis of urgency, chance for survival, etc. By 1974, this usage was extended to refer to any system of allocating limited resources according to urgency or expediency, as in the distribution of food during a famine.

Triage now refers to the screening and classification of wounded, sick, or injured patients during war or any other big disaster to determine priority needs and thereby to ensure the most efficient use of medical and surgical manpower, equipment, and facilities.

The separation of a large number of casualties, in military or civilian disaster medical care, is usually done into three groups:

  1. Those who cannot be expected to survive even with treatment.
  2. Those who will recover without treatment.
  3. The highest priority group, those who will not survive without treatment.

“Triage” was often heard on the radio during the first few days following the destruction of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York on Tuesday, September 11, 2001; as well as the disaster of Hurricane Katrina after it pounded parts of Louisiana and Mississippi on Monday, August 29, 2005, propelling high winds and sheets of rain that not only endangered lives and property in the Gulf Coast region, but also threatened the United States and its trading partners with widespread economic disruption.

This entry is located in the following unit: tri-, tre- (page 1)
Word Entries at Get Words: “triage
triage (adjective) (not comparable)
Descriptive of the allocation and sorting of issues, problems, or patients: Greg decided to triage his homework assignments of the different subjects according to the dates they were due.
This entry is located in the following unit: Words of French origin (page 10)
triage (s) (noun), triages (pl)
The process of determining immediacy and priority for treatment among ill or injured persons in a hospital or medical assistance location: The doctors in the clinic arranged to have a triage carried out by the nurses so that the patients who needed prompt attention were taken care of first.
This entry is located in the following unit: Words of French origin (page 10)
triage (verb), triages; triaged; triaging
To prioritise issues, problems, or patients: Jack triaged his assignments for homework for the different subjects according to the dates they were due.
This entry is located in the following unit: Words of French origin (page 10)
A unit at Get Words related to: “triage
triage (adjective) (not comparable)
(Descriptive of the task of allocating and sorting: The triage nurse had many patients to categorise and group regarding their medical needs.)