heart massage
- noun
- /hɑrt məˈsɑʒ/
- Specialized
:
masaje cardíaco
- The paramedic quickly performed a heart massage to keep blood flowing until the defibrillator arrived.
- do a heart massage
Examples
-
"Mine was heart massage."
Fiction book (1999) -
We gotta try open heart massage.
-
It was, all the medical people agreed, a way of doing the heart massage—not an easy way, indeed, even dangerous (nearly all of Euphrid's ribs were broken), and certainly a spectacular way to show the students what had not been Analda's intent—that doing anything is always better than doing nothing.
Fiction book (2002) -
During the emergency, the doctor directed the team to start a heart massage to save the patient's life.
-
To stabilize the patient, the nurse began administering heart massage while waiting for more advanced care.
Synonyms
1
3.7
A medical emergency method using chest pushes and mouth breaths to restart a person's heart and breathing
1
4.0
Repeated pressing on the chest to keep blood moving when the heart stops
An emergency procedure to restart breathing and blood flow
Surface Forms
Morphology
heart + massage
The meaning is directly derivable from the constituents: a procedure that involves massaging the heart (heart + massage) to restore circulation. Although medical and somewhat technical, the composition is literal and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both words would readily infer the emergency medical sense.
Etymology
Heart massage comes from the literal act of pressing the heart with steady massage-like movements during an emergency or during surgery. Doctors do this to try to 'revive' the person and to 'keep blood flowing', so heart massage now means that emergency medical procedure.