embolism

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Obstruction or occlusion of a blood vessel by an embolus.
2. n. An embolus.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Intercalation; the insertion of days, months, or years in an account of time. The Greeks made use of the lunar year of 354 days, and to adjust it to the solar year of 365 days they added a lunar month every second or third year, which they called ἐμβόλιμος μη\ν, or μη\ν ἐμβόλιμος, intercalated month.
2. n. Intercalated time.
3. n. In pathology, the obstruction of a vessel by a clot of fibrin or other substance abnormally present and brought into the current of the circulating medium from some more or less distant locality. Embolism commonly causes paralysis in the brain, with more or less of an apoplectic shock.
4. n. In liturgics, a prayer for deliverance from evil, inserted in almost all liturgies after the Lord's Prayer, as an expansion of or addition to its closing petition, whence the name. Also embolismus.
5. n. Also embolia.

Wiktionary

1. n. pathology An obstruction or occlusion of an artery by an embolus, that is by a blood clot, air bubble or other matter that has been transported by the blood stream.
2. n. The insertion or intercalation of days into the calendar in order to correct the error arising from the difference between the civil year and the solar year.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Intercalation; the insertion of days, months, or years, in an account of time, to produce regularity.
2. n. Intercalated time.
3. n. (Med.) The occlusion of a blood vessel by an embolus. Embolism in the brain often produces sudden unconsciousness and paralysis.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an insertion into a calendar
2. n. occlusion of a blood vessel by an embolus (a loose clot or air bubble or other particle)