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recovery room

recovery room

5 3.2
A hospital room where nurses watch patients as they wake from anesthesia
  • noun
  • /rɪˈkʌvəri ruːm/
translation icon : sala de recuperación
  • The nurse monitored the patient in the recovery room until he was fully awake.

Examples

  • Mrs. Stark had been in the recovery room waiting for his mother after her double mastectomy.

    Fiction book (1994)
  • The recovery room looked like the one I usually woke up in at Class Acts.

    Fiction book (1998)
  • Do you know where the patient recovery room is?

  • We ended up holding hands in the recovery room.

  • Take her to the recovery room.

  • This is the recovery room.

  • Take him to the recovery room.

  • We held James for two hours while they got our recovery room ready.

    Blog text (14)
  • "When I woke up in the recovery room, I did not know where I was or what day it was.

    Academic text (2009)
  • Your daughter's out of surgery and she's in the recovery room now, okay?

How Monitored

intensive care unit
  • Specialized
18 3.1
recovery room
5 3.2
ward
140 3.0

Surface Forms

recovery room singular

Morphology

recovery + room

The meaning is directly derived from combining 'recovery' (the process of restoring health) with 'room' (an indoor space): a room used for recovery after surgery. This noun+noun composition follows a regular, cross-linguistically common pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Recovery room comes from the simple idea of a quiet room where a patient goes to recover after an operation; nurses watch them there until they wake and are safe. So, it means 'a room in a hospital where patients are closely monitored after surgery'.