clinical

[klin-i-kuhl]

adjective

1. pertaining to a clinic.

2. concerned with or based on actual observation and treatment of disease in patients rather than experimentation or theory.

3. extremely objective and realistic; dispassionately analytic; unemotionally critical.

   She regarded him with clinical detachment.

4. pertaining to or used in a sickroom.

   a clinical bandage.

5. Ecclesiastical.

   1. (of a sacrament) administered on a deathbed or sickbed.

   2. (of a convert or conversion) made on a deathbed or sickbed.

clinical

/ ˈklɪnɪkəl /

adjective

1. of or relating to a clinic

2. of or relating to the bedside of a patient, the course of his disease, or the observation and treatment of patients directly

   a clinical lecture

   clinical medicine

3. scientifically detached; strictly objective

   a clinical attitude to life

4. plain, simple, and usually unattractive

   clinical furniture

Other Word Forms

• clinically adverb
• nonclinical adjective
• nonclinically adverb
• overclinical adjective
• overclinically adverb
• semiclinical adjective
• semiclinically adverb
• unclinical adjective
• clinicalness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of clinical¹

First recorded in 1770–80; clinic + -al ¹

Example Sentences

Doctors warn that people like Gabriela, who have no medical need for weight-loss jabs and are taking them intermittently and without clinical supervision, are gambling with their health.

Read more on BBC

Aside from a series of set-pieces early on, China could barely lay a glove as England were ruthless, clinical and composed throughout.

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The funding freeze upended the university’s business model, suspending hundreds of scientific projects that included clinical trials with patients on lifesaving medicine and raising questions over how the institution could sustain that work.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

He’s never run a clinical trial, treated a patient or published academic research.

Read more on Salon

On Nov. 9, the drugmaker announced that a heart pill it is developing cut levels of harmful LDL cholesterol in clinical trials.

Read more on Barron's

Related Words

• analytic 
• impersonal 
• scientific