clinical
Americanadjective
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pertaining to a clinic.
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concerned with or based on actual observation and treatment of disease in patients rather than experimentation or theory.
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extremely objective and realistic; dispassionately analytic; unemotionally critical.
She regarded him with clinical detachment.
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pertaining to or used in a sickroom.
a clinical bandage.
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Ecclesiastical.
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(of a sacrament) administered on a deathbed or sickbed.
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(of a convert or conversion) made on a deathbed or sickbed.
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adjective
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of or relating to a clinic
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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
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scientifically detached; strictly objective
a clinical attitude to life
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plain, simple, and usually unattractive
clinical furniture
Other Word Forms
- clinically adverb
- clinicalness noun
- nonclinical adjective
- nonclinically adverb
- overclinical adjective
- overclinically adverb
- semiclinical adjective
- semiclinically adverb
- unclinical adjective
Etymology
Origin of clinical
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"I could feel the nervousness inside the stadium," Slot said, after a strange game where Liverpool were clinical if not always in control.
From BBC
Tilly was part of a gene therapy clinical trial at Sheffield Children's Hospital in 2024 to try to help reduce seizures connected to her condition.
From BBC
Neuralink is also running a clinical trial for an implant designed to restore speech.
From MarketWatch
Typically, state laws require that medical diagnoses and clinical decisions proceed from physical examinations by licensed doctors and after a full workup of a patient’s medical and family history.
From Los Angeles Times
To address that gap, the team searched research databases for systematic reviews and randomized clinical trials published through November 2025.
From Science Daily
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
