mountain sickness
1
4.7
- noun
- /ˈmaʊntən ˈsɪk.nəs/
- Specialized
:
mal de montaña
- To avoid mountain sickness, it is important to acclimatize gradually to higher altitudes before embarking on a climb.
- a form of mountain sickness
Examples
-
Travelers to high altitudes often pray that they do not suffer from mountain sickness during their trip.
-
And a kind of generalized mountain sickness as well.
Fiction book (1999) -
Mild forms of mountain sickness can be treated with rest and medicine, but severe cases require emergency descent.
Academic text (1995) -
And up here, you risk developing mountain sickness, where fluid flows into the lungs and the brain.
-
This stage can cause the so-called acute mountain sickness.
Academic text (1995) -
And they compared Diamox, which is used for acute mountain sickness, very strong medicine to the breathing and the breathing one.
-
The journey had tired him, he said, and he talked about mountain sickness and said he knew of a particular root shown to him by an African when he was on the Barbary Coast that would cure him.
Fiction book (1994) -
If you begin to feel dizzy and nauseous while hiking at a high elevation, you may be experiencing mountain sickness.
Synonyms
5
4.4
A feeling of being sick because your body has less oxygen high on a mountain
How Severe
- Specialized
1
6.0
- Specialized
1
4.7
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a condition experienced at high altitudes' is directly and predictably composed from 'mountain' (high landform) + 'sickness' (illness), so a learner who knows both words can infer it refers to illness related to mountains/altitude. This noun–noun compositional pattern is common across languages (e.g. Spanish 'mal de montaña'), making the phrase transparent to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Mountain sickness comes from the simple image of feeling unwell on a high mountain, where the air is thin and it is hard to breathe. So, it means 'feeling sick' when you climb very high and there is less oxygen.