Words / P / Medicine

paraphrasing

noun/ˈpærəfreɪzɪŋ/

B1CEFR level
35/100Rarity: fairly common
TechnicalRegister

Restating what the patient has said in your own words to check understanding and show you have listened.

Paraphrasing back — 'So the pain wakes you at night and settles by morning' — reassures the patient they've been heard.

Similar: reflecting back

Topic: Clinical consultation 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: Clinical consultation