Rale

Pronunciation

• IPA: /rɑːl/

Origin

From French râle.

Full definition of rale

Noun

1. (medicine, now chiefly in plural) An abnormal clicking, rattling or crackling sound, made by one or both lungs and heard with a stethoscope, caused by the popping open of airways collapsed by fluid or exudate, or sometimes by pulmonary edema.
• 1840, CM Billard, A Treatise on the Diseases of Infants, p. 416:Michael Colot, aged fifteen days, of a strong constitution, not having been sick from the time of birth, was, on the 22nd of November, taken with a violent cough, accompanied with a rale which could be heard without recourse to auscultation.
• 1861, Austin Flint, American Medical Times, 7 Dec 1961:If you were to tell a patient that he had a ‘rhonchus’ in his chest, he would imagine that it was something formidable, while, if you said that he had a ‘râle’ he would not be alarmed.
• 1894, Arthur Conan Doyle, Round Red Lamp:But after all the educated classes have a right to expect that their medical man will know the difference between a mitral murmur and a bronchitic rale.

Synonyms

• crackles

Anagrams

• earl, Earl
• lare
• lear
• real