WordValetriage
sorting patients by urgency of need
In more detail
1. (noun) the process of sorting people or things according to how urgently they need help or attention
2. (noun) in a hospital or emergency situation, the system of deciding which patients should be treated first based on how serious their condition is
Examples
- 1. During the disaster, triage was used to decide which injured people needed immediate surgery.
- 2. In the emergency room, nurses perform triage to determine whether patients should be seen right away or can wait.
How to use triage
Triage is used primarily in medical and emergency contexts to describe the systematic assessment and prioritization of patients based on injury or illness severity. It has expanded into general usage to mean any urgent prioritization process. The term is neutral and clinical in tone, commonly heard in hospitals, disaster response, and increasingly in business contexts when discussing resource allocation under time pressure.
Common phrases
- medical triage
- triage system
- triage process
- mass casualty triage
- triage nurse
- triage unit
Synonyms
prioritization · sorting · classification · assessment · screening
Word family
triage (verb) · triaged (past tense) · triaging (present participle)
A common mistake
Learners sometimes overuse triage in non-emergency contexts where simpler words like 'sort' or 'prioritize' would be more appropriate; triage specifically implies urgency and limited resources.
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