iron lung
4
6.7
- noun
- /ˈaɪərn lʌŋ/
- Archaic
:
pulmón de hierro
- Taking place in the late 80s, John Hawkes plays Mark O'Brien, a man who's kept alive by living in an iron lung.
- live in an iron lung
- using the iron lung
- day in an iron lung
Examples
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You can come to our exhibition and see this iron lung for real.
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Polanco is now in an iron lung.
Blog text (7) -
"It's called an iron lung," she said.
Academic text (2011) -
While this was not the most comfortable position, neither was lying in the iron lung.
Blog text (19) -
The way I hear it, he was home hooked up to an iron lung.
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She was lying inside an iron lung.
Fiction book (1999) -
The archive contains many letters about children stricken by polio and living in iron lungs in hospitals.
Blog text (23) -
Paul Alexander spends almost every moment of the day inside his iron lung.
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Six individuals are still living in the iron lung in the United States.
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Martha Lillard is inside her iron lung, which has been modified by mechanics over the years.
Synonyms
18
4.9
A machine that helps a person breathe by moving air into and out of their lungs
4
3.4
A machine that helps a person get air into their lungs when they cannot do it on their own
How Supportive
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun is transparently built from 'iron' (metal) + 'lung' (breathing organ), so a learner who knows both words will reasonably infer a metal device that functions as or assists a lung (i.e., a mechanical respirator). The pattern is compositional and attested cross‑linguistically (e.g. 'steel/iron lung'), so the basic meaning is directly derivable even if historical/medical details are unfamiliar.
Etymology
Iron lung comes from the machine's look and job: it was a large metal tank (the iron) that surrounded a person's body and helped their lungs move so they could 'breathe'. That's why the name means a metal machine used to help people who cannot breathe on their own.