triage

American  

[tree-ahzh] / triˈɑʒ /

noun

triages plural

1. the process of sorting victims, as of a battle or disaster, to determine medical priority in order to increase the number of survivors.

2. the determination of priorities for action.

   She began her workday with a triage of emails.

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adjective

1. of, relating to, or performing the task of triage.

   a triage officer.

verb (used with object)

triaged, triaging

1. to act on or in by triage.

   to triage a crisis.

triage British  

/ ˌtriːˈɑːʒ, ˈtraɪ-, ˈtriːˌɑːʒ /

noun

1. (in a hospital) the principle or practice of sorting emergency patients into categories of priority for treatment

2. the principle or practice of sorting casualties in battle or disaster into categories of priority for treatment

3. the principle or practice of allocating limited resources, as of food or foreign aid, on a basis of expediency rather than according to moral principles or the needs of the recipients

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• triages
  plural

Etymology

Origin of triage

First recorded in 1925–30; from French: “a sorting,” from tri(er) “to sort” ( cf. try) + -age -age

Explanation

Grouping patients based on the severity of their injuries and the likelihood of their survival is called triage. In a triage situation, urgent cases are seen by doctors first, and non-life-threatening emergencies go last. You can also apply the sorting and prioritizing of triage to more general situations. If you're overwhelmed with homework, you can perform triage by organizing it into subjects and prioritizing assignments based on their due dates. The word triage comes from the French word trier meaning to sort. Although the medical sense is now the most common, it wasn't used that way until World War One.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

triage triages triaged triaging

They made it to a nearby clinic, San Antonio de Catia La Mar, where the besieged staff was implementing emergency triage, prioritizing those with life-threatening conditions.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026

The report said concerns about O'Brien's practice were known for many years before 2016, including triage delays, record-keeping failures, storage of patients notes at home, delayed dictation, non-standard prescribing and other clinical and administrative concerns.

From BBC ● Jun. 24, 2026

Thousands, and sometimes millions, of flaws can be uncovered by these models, posing a triage challenge.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026

He said Target’s turnaround appeared to be working, but that it needed to “move on from triage to full-scale growth.”

From MarketWatch ● May 20, 2026

One day a North Vietnamese soldier was brought into triage, and Adams was asked to take care of him.

From "Boots on the Ground: America's War in Vietnam" by Elizabeth Partridge

The company developed a metric called “Mean Time to Adapt,” which measures how quickly an organization identifies, triages and fixes vulnerabilities once discovered.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026

The team preps trees when possible ahead of advancing flames and triages those that have faced the fire.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2021

For every patient that telemedicine triages, avoiding the need for an in-person appointment, another slot is opened up for someone who may have needed it more.

From Slate ● Mar. 17, 2020

“Hope has sustained communities, very much like Thousand Oaks, through the exact same triages of mass shootings,” said Andy Fox, the city’s outgoing mayor.

From Washington Times ● Nov. 9, 2018

In the months following the shooting, university counselors provided more than 700 mental health triages, spoke to classes, visited survivors in the hospital, fielded 120 calls from parents and provided other services.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 13, 2012

If the animal can be triaged nearby and stabilized, Rulli said, rescuers try to transport them to the institute’s hospital in Sausalito.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 2, 2024

Diaz triaged resources, cutting specialty units in favor of patrol.

From Seattle Times ● May 29, 2024

"This is the only hospital still accepting injured and we're getting more every day. Some go into surgery, others get triaged, but the capacity is very low," he said.

From Reuters ● Apr. 19, 2023

Patients are triaged, with some being sent to a rapid-assessment unit and the less seriously ill to a minor-injuries unit or an urgent-care centre with GPs on hand, following standard best practice at major hospitals.

From BBC ● Jan. 12, 2023

Many were triaged in the war zone and then treated at a military medical facility in Landstuhl, Germany, before being flown to the United States.

From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama

They found that DeepSeek handled these tasks as well as Anthropic’s Sonnet and was good at email triaging in particular.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026

After landing at a cousin’s place in Long Beach, she began triaging: calling congregants, ensuring they made it out and finding a landing spot for the church in the immediate aftermath.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 12, 2025

A quick way to measure methane leaks is essential for triaging newly discovered UOWs, and also for efforts to plug known wells.

From Science Daily ● Dec. 4, 2024

“Our teams are assisting in triaging emergency cases and managing stabilized patients admitted in the medical tents,” MSF said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

From Washington Times ● Oct. 12, 2023

The lightness he'd felt fled him, and he began the rotten business of triaging his in-box.

From Eastern Standard Tribe by Doctorow, Cory