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Glite Dictionary
💔 Emotionally damaged person 🩸 Burst blood vessel
broken vessel

broken vessel

3.8
A tube that carries blood that has burst and caused bleeding
  • noun
  • Specialized
translation icon : vaso roto
  • The optometrist explained that the redness in her eye was due to a broken vessel from a minor impact.

Examples

  • The blue was gone from his cheeks, and the broken vessels in his nose had turned a familiar red.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • His face is webbed with broken vessels, and his nose looks as if it has been broken more than a few times.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • After the injury, the doctor noticed a broken vessel near his eye that caused significant bruising.

  • He went to the hospital because he had a broken vessel in his arm that was causing excessive bleeding.

Synonyms

bleeding
vsbroken vessel
346 1.4

The flow of blood from a cut or other injury

focuses on a ruptured internal tube that leaks blood into nearby tissue

Antonyms

intact
304 3.7

Whole and not damaged or missing any parts

Surface Forms

broken vessel singular
broken vessels plural

Morphology

broken + vessel

The phrase is compositionally formed (a vessel that is broken) so the broad idea of something tubular being damaged is derivable, but the specific medical sense ‘a ruptured/burst blood vessel’ requires knowing the sense of vessel = blood vessel and that 'broken' can mean 'ruptured' in this context. Because this domain-specific interpretation is not guaranteed for an average B1 learner who may know only the common senses of 'vessel' (container/ship), the expression is only partially predictable.

Etymology

Broken vessel comes from the plain image of a small blood tube or vessel that is broken and lets blood leak into the area around it, making a red or bruised patch. So it is used for 'a blood vessel that has burst'.