clinical, a.
(ˈklɪnɪkəl)
[f. as clinic n.1 and a.1 + -al1.]
1. Med. Of or pertaining to the sick-bed, spec. to that of indoor hospital patients: used in connexion with the practical instruction given to medical students at the sick-beds in hospitals; e.g.
clinical clerk, one who accompanies a hospital-physician in the wards, and keeps records of the cases; clinical lecture, a lecture at the bedside of the patient upon his case; clinical medicine, clinical surgery, medicine or surgery as learnt or taught at the bedside, ‘usually applied to hospital practice in which the physician, in going round the wards, comments upon the cases under his care’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.), hence clinical physician, clinical surgeon; clinical thermometer, a thermometer for ascertaining the patient's temperature.
| 1780 Ann. Reg. 216 Dr. John Parsons was unanimously elected Clinical Professor to the Radcliffe Infirmary at Oxford. 1809 Med. Jrnl. XXI. 161 The cultivation of clinical medicine, or the actual superintendence of the treatment of diseases. 1835 St. Thomas' Hospital Rep. 83, I will give you the words of my clinical clerk. 1867 J. Hogg Microsc. i. ii. 105 An exceedingly simple..form of microscope for the purposes of clinical instruction. 1878 Markham Gt. Frozen Sea ii. 16 A clinical thermometer was inserted into the mouth. 1889 London Hosp. & Med. Coll. Prospectus 16 Graduates..admitted to three months' Clinical Clerkship or Dressership. |
2. Eccl. Administered on the sick-bed to one in danger of death.
| 1844 Eng. Saints, St. German ii. 17 After the Baptism he received on the bed of sickness, which the ancients called Clinical baptism. 1846 C. Maitland Church in Catacombs 120 Unless in danger of death, when a clinical or death-bed reconciliation was permitted. 1855 Card. Wiseman Fabiola 375 Clinical baptism..was administered by pouring or sprinkling the water on the head. 1876 C. M. Davies Unorth. Lond. 239 The baptism of Rome and England [is] stigmatized [by the Greek Church] as ‘clinical’ only. |
3. a. Coldly detached and dispassionate, like a medical report or examination; diagnostic or therapeutic, like medical investigation or treatment; treating a subject-matter as if it were a case of disease, esp. with close attention to detail; serving as part of a case-study. Also Comb.
| 1928 F. Hurst President is Born xxxii. 326 Bek would never have permitted Winslow to behold her..bartering in the clinical phraseology of the cattle-pen over bull or stallion or sow. 1934 H. Nicolson Curzon: Last Phase 65 As an ‘exhibit’ in any clinical examination of the mentality of the victors in the European War she [sc. Turkey] is unsurpassed. 1937 C. Isherwood Lions & Shadows 191 He peppered his work liberally with such terms as ‘eutectic’, ‘sigmoid curve’, ‘Arch-Monad’, ‘ligature’, ‘gastropod’; seeking thereby to produce what he himself described as a ‘clinical’ effect. To be ‘clinically minded’ was, he said, the first duty of a poet. 1944 H. Treece H. Read 9, I have selected a passage..as a clinical exhibit of adolescent self-repression. 1947 W. Empson Seven Types Ambig. (ed. 2) p. ix, The effort of writing a good bit of verse has..been carried through almost as a clinical thing; it was done only to save the man's own sanity. 1953 R. Lehmann Echoing Grove 27 ‘I suppose the twitching is just reflex action.’ Dinah's tone was clinical. 1953 S. Spender Creative Element 146 Auden..showed..a gift for inventing clinical-seeming images. 1957 Times 30 Sept. 14/6 Supreme skill on its own [in lawn tennis] without any major goal tends to become cold, clinical, and without feeling. 1958 Daily Mail 13 Mar. 1/1 Unemployment figures..were studied with..almost clinical interest. |
b. Bare and functional, like a hospital.
| 1932 H. Nicolson Public Faces xii. 321 Her almost clinical bathroom. 1956 N. Cardus in Bedside Guardian V. 144 Would the interior look clinical,..would the architecture and ornamentation strike a chill to the heart? |