malignant hypertension
1
6.7
- noun
- /məˈlɪɡnənt haɪˈpɪrˌtɛnʃən/
- Specialized
:
hipertensión maligna
- Note that in contemporary medical management, these blood pressure readings would be considered in the range for malignant hypertension, a medical emergency warranting hospital admission to the intensive care unit.
Examples
-
Patients with malignant hypertension often require immediate medical attention to prevent serious damage to their organs.
-
- And he was reversing diabetes, he was reversing malignant hypertension, reversing heart disease, the diabetic complications, reversing diabetic blindness.
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The doctor explained that malignant hypertension can lead to life-threatening complications if not treated quickly.
-
Symptoms such as headaches and shortness of breath can indicate a case of malignant hypertension.
How Severe
- Specialized
1
6.7
- Specialized
9
6.5
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is compositionally built from 'malignant' (harmful/very severe, especially in medical contexts) and 'hypertension' (high blood pressure), so its sense as a dangerous, rapidly progressing form of high blood pressure is directly inferable. This medical use of 'malignant' to signal severity is common cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can reasonably understand the MWE.
Etymology
The medical term malignant hypertension uses malignant in the older medical sense of 'very harmful' and hypertension to mean 'high blood pressure'. So, imagine very high blood pressure that behaves like a bad illness and quickly damages organs — that image is why the phrase means a fast, dangerous form of high blood pressure.