lethal dose
14
6.7
- noun
- /ˈliːθəl doʊs/
- Specialized
- The doctor warned that even a small mistake could result in a lethal dose of medication.
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Watch on YouTubeLike you go beyond the lethal dose for those cells while inducing much less damage in the rest of the rest of the surrounding person.
- Like you go beyond the lethal dose for those cells while inducing much less damage in the rest of the rest of the surrounding person.
Examples
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It's a massive, lethal dose.
Fiction book (1996) -
Finally, a lethal dose of a toxic agent, Potassium chloride, will be administered to induce cardiac arrest.
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At ten times the lethal dose, the radiation levels are at their highest point yet.
Blog text (1) -
You have been exposed to a lethal dose of radiation.
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The doses they could experience would potentially be lethal doses in a very short period of time.
Blog text (25) -
They can tell, commander, if you received a lethal dose.
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I couldn't help thinking of the cosmonauts who were about to get a potentially lethal dose of radiation.
Fiction book (1999) -
Tests showed his blood-alcohol content was 0.36 percent, a near-lethal dose and more than four times the level at which some states consider drivers drunk.
Academic text (1998) -
They've injected your IV with a lethal dose of morphine.
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Sodium pentothal, a sedative, will be injected in a lethal dose, followed by 100 mg of the paralyzing agent, Pancuronium bromide.
How Toxic
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'the amount of a substance sufficient to cause death' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'lethal' (causing death) with 'dose' (a measured amount of a drug). This simple adjectival+noun composition is common and cross-linguistically shared, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
The phrase lethal dose comes from a simple picture: a certain dose, an amount of a drug or chemical, is lethal, meaning able 'to kill'. So, lethal dose means the amount that will cause death.