patient
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
Someone who requires medical care.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
payshuhntSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpeɪʃənt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A person who requires medical care
“The number of emergency patients has grown rapidly.”
A person or animal that receives health care from a doctor, nurse, dentist, allied health practitioner, or other person educated in health care.
One who, or that which, is passively affected; a passive recipient.
adjective
of a person
Willing to wait if necessary; not losing one's temper while waiting.
Constant in pursuit or exertion; persevering; calmly diligent.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A person who requires medical care
Used this way, patient is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
“The number of emergency patients has grown rapidly.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
- Science
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use patient
- “The number of emergency patients has grown rapidly.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The semantic role of an entity that is not the agent but is directly involved in or affected by the happening denoted by the verb in the clause.
The right of a physician to refuse to divulge confidential information from a patient without the consent of the patient.
The responsibility of a nurse to act in the best interests of the patient.
The responsibility of a physician to act in the best interests of the patient.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Antonyms
Sense: willing to wait if necessary
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.