flatliner

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

flatline +‎ -er

Noun[edit]

flatliner (plural flatliners)

  1. (rare) A patient with no heartbeat.
    • 1996, Bill Butterworth, Butterworth gets his life together, page 144:
      […] unless my heart stops, okay? Nada — unless I'm a flatliner."
    • 1998, George Mckinney, Cross the Line:
      In spite of his dramatic highs and the canyon lows, Kurt was a flatliner—a patient with no heartbeat.
    • 2011, Laurence Street, Introduction to Biomedical Engineering Technology, page 125:
      Though occasionally a “flatliner” can be revived with a defib, it is most commonly used to change the uncoordinated contractions of the heart (fibrillation) into a normal sinus rhythm—that is, to defibrillate the heart.
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