nitrous oxide
5
4.6
- noun
- /ˈnaɪtrəs ˈɑksaɪd/
- Specialized
:
óxido nitroso
- I'm going to be administering some nitrous oxide.
- nitrous oxide concentrations
- nitrous oxide emissions
I was inhaling nitrous oxide to the exclusion of breathing air.
- I was inhaling nitrous oxide to the exclusion of breathing air.
Examples
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You want some nitrous oxide?
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I'm going to give you some nitrous oxide.
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Have you ever had nitrous oxide?
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So we're going to connect up the nitrous oxide and switch this on.
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She's had a minor reaction to a small dose of nitrous oxide.
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Anesthesia was standardized for all patients; induction of propofol was followed by nitrous oxide and isoflurane for maintenance.
Academic text (2009) -
Nitrous oxide is produced as a by-product of nitrification and denitrification in soils and oceans.
Academic text (1994) -
The dentist used nitrous oxide to help relax the patient during the procedure.
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Many hospitals provide nitrous oxide as a safe anesthetic for patients undergoing surgery.
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During my dental appointment, the assistant offered me nitrous oxide to ease my anxiety.
Synonyms
4
4.0
A gas with no color that dentists give to patients to breathe so they relax and sometimes laugh
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is directly built from 'nitrous' (relating to nitrogen) + 'oxide' (a compound with oxygen), so a learner who knows both words can infer it denotes an oxygen-containing nitrogen compound (i.e. a nitrogen oxide, typically the gas N₂O). This is a compositional, non-idiomatic technical term and follows transparent chemical naming patterns found across languages, so its basic meaning is derivable from the parts.
Etymology
Nitrous oxide is a name that shows what the gas is: nitrous links it to nitrogen and oxide means it has oxygen. One famous image is a patient at the dentist breathing the gas and laughing — people called it 'laughing gas', so it is used 'to relax' patients and also to 'boost' engine power.