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🧪 A pressure test 🧪 To test under pressure
stress test

stress test

8 4.4
A test that checks how something works under pressure or bad conditions
  • noun
  • /strɛs tɛst/
  • Specialized
: prueba de estrés
  • As part of her health assessment, the doctor recommended a stress test to check her heart's response to physical exertion.
  • an exercise stress test
  • do a stress test

Then we subjected the machine to ACPU stress test and this is even weirder.

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Examples

  • Doppler echocardiography and exercise stress tests were applied to all.

    Academic text (2007)

  • Before launching the new product, the team performed a stress test to ensure it could handle unexpected spikes in usage.

  • So this is kind of a standard, standard stress test that we do.

  • So it's like a like a stress test at very, very high levels of pressure.

    Chris Williamson

  • How do you choose the things that might be the right stress test to find that crack?

  • A total of forty-one patients completed the exercise stress test.

    Academic text (2005)

  • No differences could be found between ME and CFS patients on the exercise stress test.

    Academic text (2005)

  • The Fed prepares a new stress test for banks.

    Blog text (13)

  • Beginning in 2011, stress tests became a regular feature of the regulatory apparatus.

    Academic text (2018)

  • Results of resting electrocardiograms and stress tests contributed most to these diagnoses.

    Academic text (2003)

Synonyms

test
vsstress test
∞ 1.0

An activity to check how well something works

focuses on performance specifically under pressure or adverse conditions

How Thorough

to overtest
1 5.5
stress test
  • Specialized
8 4.4
to retest
11 3.4
to test
∞ 1.0
to check
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

stress test singular
stress tests plural

Morphology

stress + test

The meaning 'to subject a system to heavy load' is directly and compositionally derived from 'stress' (to apply pressure) combined with 'test' (an activity that checks performance). This straightforward action–purpose combination follows common English compounding/verb phrase patterns and is likely clear to a B1 learner who knows both constituents.

Etymology

Stress test comes from a simple picture: people put an object or a person under heavy stress, meaning pressure or force, and run a test to see what breaks or fails. So a stress test is a 'test to see how well something works under pressure'.