respiratory distress syndrome
noun
Simple meaning
An acute lung disease of the newborn.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
rehsperuhtawreedihstruhsihndrohmSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɹɛspɚətɔɹidɪstɹɛsɪndɹoʊm
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
An acute lung disease of the newborn (especially the premature newborn); lungs cannot expand because of a wetting agent is lacking; characterized by rapid shallow breathing and cyanosis and the formation of a glassy hyaline membrane over the alveoli
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: An acute lung disease of the newborn (especially the premature newborn); lungs cannot expand because of a wetting agent is lacking; characterized by rapid shallow breathing and cyanosis and the formation of a glassy hyaline membrane over the alveoli
Used this way, respiratory distress syndrome is a reasonably familiar word with a faintly unfavourable edge. It carries more force than its gentler alternatives. It turns up most in medicine or healthcare contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Strong
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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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.