air embolism

Questions about air embolism

What does air embolism mean?

air embolism means "obstruction of the circulatory system caused by an air bubble as, e.g., accidentally during surgery or hypodermic injection or as a complication from scuba diving". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for air embolism?

Close synonyms include aeroembolism, gas embolism, decompression sickness, aeroembolism, gas embolism. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is air embolism a common word?

air embolism is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.