noun
triage
TREE-ahzh
noun
1
The process of sorting people or things by urgency or importance to decide what gets attention first.
"Nurses perform triage in the emergency room to treat the most critical patients first."
verb
1
To sort or prioritize by urgency.
"The team triaged the bug reports before the release."
How to Use Triage
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishDeciding what needs urgent attention first, whether that's patients in a hospital or tasks in a busy workload.
Common pairings
triage patients
triage nurse
triage the workload
Word Forms
triaged past tense, triages plural, triages singular
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Nurses perform _____ in the emergency room to treat the most critical patients first.
Etymology
From French triage, "sorting," from trier, "to sort or pick out" — originally used for grading coffee beans before it became standard medical vocabulary.