Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Systemic infection by pathogenic microorganisms, especially bacteria, that have invaded the bloodstream, usually from a local source. Sepsis is characterized by fever, increased number of white blood cells, increased heart rate, and other signs of widespread infection.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Putridity or putrefaction; decomposition; rot.
- noun Contamination of the organism from ill-conditioned wounds, from abscesses, or certain other local ptomaïne-factories or bacterial seminaries; septicemia. It includes of course similar conditions produced experimentally by inoculation.
- noun [capitalized] In entomology, a genus of dipterous insects of the family Muscidæ.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Med.) The poisoning of the system by the introduction of putrescent material into the blood.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun pathology A serious medical
condition in which the whole body is inflamed, and a known or suspected infection is present.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the presence of pus-forming bacteria or their toxins in the blood or tissues
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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I learned that sepsis is the tenth most common cause of death overall, in North America.
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She also had a blood infection -- known as "sepsis" -- that her body could not fight off.
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Also known as blood poisoning, sepsis occurs when the body's normal reaction to an infection goes into overdrive, even in patients with weak immune systems.
Faster Care for Blood Infection Laura Landro 2011
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Staph can cause skin infection as well as more serious conditions such as pneumonia or sepsis, which is blood poisoning.
Staph Bacteria Found in Supermarket Meat Shirley S. Wang 2011
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Also known as gram-negative bacteremia and gram-positive bacteremia, sepsis occurs when infectious agents like bacteria or fungi or products of infection like bacterial toxins enter the body, most often through a wound or incision.
Forever Young M.D. Nicholas Perricone 2010
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The culprit is an acute, severe, systemic infection known as sepsis, which leads to septic shock, the onset and progression of which closely parallel the bodily changes seen during aging.
Forever Young M.D. Nicholas Perricone 2010
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After Conaway was discovered unresponsive on May 11, manager Phil Brock first said that an overdose of painkillers was a likely culprit, but that theory was disputed days later by Pinsky, who said that there was no sign of an intentional overdose and instead the actor was suffering from pneumonia and the blood poisoning known as sepsis.
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Bacterial infections can cause a condition known as "sepsis," where the blood is poisoned by toxins, causing a high fever and the inflammation of vital organs.
Wired Top Stories Madhumita Venkataramanan 2011
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Her study looked at how much money 309 U.S. hospitals spent to care for patients with a life-threatening illness called sepsis in which the immune system responds so dramatically to infection that a number of organs start to fail.
FOXNews.com 2011
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After Conaway was discovered unresponsive on May 11, manager Phil Brock first said that an overdose of painkillers was a likely culprit, but that theory was disputed days later by Pinsky, who said that there was no sign of an intentional overdose and instead the actor was suffering from pneumonia and the blood poisoning known as sepsis.
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