bill of health
7
8.1
- noun
- /bɪl ʌv hɛlθ/
- Archaic
:
certificado de salud
- a clean bill of health
Examples
-
I have been granted a clean bill of health, and so have you.
Fiction book (1992) -
A physical examination resulted in a clean bill of health.
Blog text (32) -
Suppose I told you the biopsy report came back and I was given a clean bill of health?
Fiction book (1997) -
Private Santiago got a clean bill of health.
Fiction book (1992) -
They gave me a clean bill of health.
Fiction book (1992) -
We checked him over for alien bugs and neurotoxins, and he's got a clean bill of health.
Fiction book (1992) -
As the sailors and marines had been given a clean bill of health before going ashore, the malady had been acquired in Tahiti.
Fiction book (1991) -
The captain presented the bill of health to confirm that the ship's crew was free from any contagious diseases.
-
Before departing for the next port, the crew received a bill of health noting their good condition.
-
The authorities checked the bill of health to ensure that all crew members were healthy before allowing the ship to dock.
Synonyms
18
3.3
An official statement that a person or thing is healthy and has no serious problems
Surface Forms
Morphology
bill + of + health
There is a visible compositional relation: if a learner knows 'bill' as a written statement/document and 'health' as wellbeing, they can infer 'a written statement about health' and plausibly guess 'certificate of health'. However, the phrase is formal/partly idiomatic (and can extend figuratively to approval of projects), so the exact institutional sense and broader uses are not fully predictable to an average B1 learner.
Etymology
Bill of health comes from old shipping practice: a written bill would say the crew were in good health and free from disease when a ship reached port, and the paper had to be shown to enter. So the phrase means 'an official document saying a ship's crew is free from contagious disease'.