Icu

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A specialized hospital ward where patients with life-threatening conditions receive constant monitoring and intensive medical treatment
2. The area of a hospital reserved for seriously ill people who need round-the-clock observation and advanced life support
3. A department within a hospital that provides close, continuous care to critically sick patients using specialized equipment and staff

Etymology: ICU is an initialism, built from the first letters of "intensive care unit." Its central word, "intensive," comes from the Latin "intensivus," from "intendere," meaning "to stretch out" or "direct toward." The idea of concentrating effort on one point carried over into medicine's focused, round-the-clock monitoring of critically ill patients. "Care" has a surprising past. In Old English, "caru" meant sorrow, grief, or anxiety. The sense of attentive looking-after developed later, as worry about someone turns into watching over them. "Unit" comes from the Latin "unus," meaning "one," through "unitas." A unit is a single, self-contained part of a larger whole, so an ICU is a dedicated section of a hospital set apart from the rest.