Words / O / Medicine

obtund

verb/əbˈtʌnd/

C2CEFR level
92/100Rarity: very rare
TechnicalRegister

To dull or blunt a patient's level of consciousness or a physiological reflex.

The sedative was titrated carefully so as not to obtund the airway reflexes before intubation.

Similar: blunt, dull

Topic: Surgery in Medical English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

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More medicine words: Surgery