electrical storm
- noun
- /ɪˈlɛktrɪkəl stɔrm/
- Specialized
:
tormenta eléctrica
Examples
-
An electrical storm.
Fiction book (1993) -
Sailor grabs Lula and they start dancing like two jacked-up spastics in an electrical storm.
Fiction book (1990) -
The doctor explained that an electrical storm can cause dangerous heart rhythms that may require immediate medical attention.
-
Patients experiencing an electrical storm of the heart may feel symptoms like palpitations or dizziness.
-
During a cardiac evaluation, we monitored her heart for signs of an electrical storm that could indicate serious arrhythmias.
How Severe
- Specialized
- Specialized
28
7.4
Surface Forms
Morphology
Combining 'electrical' (relating to electricity) with 'storm' (a violent disturbance or cluster) yields a readily inferable image of an intense electrical disturbance; with the example context 'in his heart' a B1 learner would likely understand it refers to strong or repeated electrical activity in the heart. However, the specific clinical meaning — a rapid clustering of severe arrhythmias requiring urgent treatment — is a specialized medical sense that goes beyond everyday compositional inference, so the expression is not fully predictable.
Etymology
Electrical storm in medicine uses the image of many sudden electrical shocks inside the heart, like tiny lightning strikes in the chest. So, doctors use it to mean 'a sudden series of dangerous, fast heart rhythms'.