open-heart surgery
16
4.4
- noun
- /ˈoʊpən hɑrt ˈsɜrdʒəri/
- Specialized
:
cirugía a corazón abierto
- Six months after my mom had open-heart surgery, she and I walked a 5k.
- patients undergoing open-heart surgery
You know, I've had pneumonia three times, I've had malaria, I've had open heart surgery, I've had cats.
- You know, I've had pneumonia three times, I've had malaria, I've had open heart surgery, I've had cats.
- But if you are the patient getting counseled by your doctor and they say, you know what, I think we're going to have to do open heart surgery.
- Should a car mechanic try and do an open heart surgery?
- Think of trying to do the dishes or performing open heart surgery.
- Organ transplants, joint transplants, open heart surgery with childbirth, dental work over and over again.
- Like, so you tell me we're just about to go on live here and you're like, oh, by the way, his dad's by the way, had double open heart surgery recently.
Examples
-
At the age of eight, Pete had open-heart surgery to repair a hole in his heart.
-
Former President Bill Clinton underwent successful open-heart surgery today in New York City.
-
Open heart surgery is common practice.
-
This patient needs open-heart surgery.
-
The last thing I ever expected was to be a candidate for open-heart surgery.
Fiction book (2002) -
As a child, I had open-heart surgery—successful, but it limited my activities.
Fiction book (1997) -
Little 6-month-old Emma (Andy) Schwartz came through her open-heart surgery well and was doing as well as can be expected.
Academic text (2016) -
I was scheduled to have open-heart surgery for three blocked arteries in my heart.
Synonyms
36
3.1
An operation on the heart to fix a disease or problem
How Invasive
- Specialized
16
4.4
- Specialized
- Specialized
1
3.8
- Specialized
48
3.8
- Specialized
4
4.2
Surface Forms
Morphology
open-heart + surgery
The meaning is directly and compositionally built from the constituents: 'open' + 'heart' + 'surgery' clearly indicates a surgical operation involving opening the chest/heart. This compounding pattern is transparent and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows the words would readily infer the intended medical procedure.
Etymology
Open-heart surgery comes from a very literal image: surgeons open the chest to work on the heart. Sometimes they stop the heart and use a machine to keep the blood moving, so it means 'surgery done by opening the chest to fix the heart'.