atelectasis
a·te·lec·ta·sis/æ.tɪˈlɛk.tə.sɪs/noun
atelectasis is a noun meaning “The collapse of a part of or the whole lung caused by inner factors rather than a pneumothorax” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled A-T-E-L-E-C-T-A-S-I-S and has 5 syllables (a·te·lec·ta·sis), and it appears about once in every 22 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of atelectasis is atelectases.
What does atelectasis mean?
noun
- 1
The collapse of a part of or the whole lung caused by inner factors rather than a pneumothorax.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce atelectasis?
- /æ.tɪˈlɛk.tə.sɪs/
Atelectasis has 5 syllables, split a·te·lec·ta·sis in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Pvanp7-atelectasis.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of atelectasis
- atelectases plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is atelectasis?
Atelectasis appears about once in every 22 million words in written English, the 143,405th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Atelectasis in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense lung collapse caused by inner factors:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Portuguese | atelectasia |
| Spanish | atelectasia |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does atelectasis come from?
From Ancient Greek ἀτελής (atelḗs, “incomplete”) + ἔκτασις (éktasis, “extension”), from ἐκτείνω (ekteínō, “to extend”). By surface analysis, atel- + ectasis.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).