the.com/patient
Either you're waiting calmly or you're a number on a hospital wristband — rarely both.
means Describing someone who endures delay, trouble, or hardship without complaint — or, as a noun, a person receiving medical care.
from From Latin 'patiens,' the present participle of 'pati,' meaning 'to suffer, endure, or undergo.' That single root explains both senses: the patient person quietly bears whatever comes, and the medical patient is literally 'one who suffers.' It reached English through Old French 'pacient' in the medieval period. Its kin are everywhere — 'passion' (originally suffering, as in the Passion of Christ), 'compassion' (to suffer with), and 'passive' (acted upon, enduring rather than doing).
- shared root
- From Latin patiens, meaning one who suffers
- longest wait
- Some ER waits exceed twelve hours regularly
- zero patient
- The first known case of an outbreak
- virtue myth
- Studies link impatience to faster decisions, sometimes better ones
henry moseley — survived 67 years as a patient at wakefield asylum in england, admitted 1875
phineas gage — railroad worker whose 1848 tamping iron accident through his skull became neuroscience's most famous patient case
aruna shanbaug — nurse in persistent vegetative state for 42 years after 1973 assault in mumbai, india's longest-cared-for patient