tourniquet

English

WOTD – 17 May 2008

Etymology

From French tourniquet, from tourner (“to turn”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈtʊə.nɪ.keɪ/, /ˈtɔː.nɪ.keɪ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈtɝ.nɪ.kɪt/, /ˈtʊɚ.nɪ.kɪt/, /ˈtɝ.nɪ.keɪ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

tourniquet (plural tourniquets)

1. (medicine) A tightly-compressed bandage used to stop bleeding by stopping the flow of blood through a large artery in a limb.
   • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter II, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

     His forefathers had been, as a rule, professional men—physicians and lawyers; his grandfather died under the walls of Chapultepec Castle while twisting a tourniquet for a cursing dragoon; an uncle remained indefinitely at Malvern Hill; […].

   • 1957, Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Viking Press, →OCLC:

     […] Bull was in the bathroom taking his fix, clutching his old black necktie in his teeth for a tourniquet and jabbing with the needle into his woesome arm with the thousand holes; […]

   • 2018, Sandeep Jauhar, Heart: a History, →ISBN, page 83:

     After he was done, Lillehei's assistants released the tourniquet around Gregory's venae cavae, allowing blood to return.

2. Any of several similar methods of clamping components into position.
3. (obsolete) A turnstile.

Translations

a tightly compressed bandage used to stop bleeding

• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Belarusian: жгут m (žhut), джгут m (džhut)
• Bulgarian: турникет m (turniket)
• Catalan: torniquet m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 止血帶 / 止血带 (zh) (zhǐxuèdài)

• Czech: zaškrcovadlo n, škrtidlo n
• Danish: årepresse c
• Esperanto: please add this translation if you can
• Finnish: kiristysside (fi)
• French: garrot (fr) m, tourniquet (fr) m
• Georgian: please add this translation if you can
• German: Tourniquet (de) n, Aderpresse f, Stauschlauch (de) m
• Hebrew: חוֹסֵם עוֹרְקִים m (khosém 'or'kím)
• Hungarian: érnyomó, ércsíptető, érszorító (hu), érleszorító, (medical) turniculum
• Icelandic: stasi m, snarvölur m, blóðrásarband n
• Italian: laccio emostatico m
• Japanese: 止血帯 (しけつたい, shiketsutai)
• Kazakh: бұрау (būrau)
• Khmer: ប្រដាប់ចង់ទប់ឈាម (prɑɑdapcɑngtupchiəm)
• Korean: 지혈대 (jihyeoldae)
• Maori: takai tauteka
• Mongolian: please add this translation if you can
• Norwegian: turniké m
• Plautdietsch: Aufbinjsel n, Ombinjsel n
• Polish: opaska uciskowa f, staza (pl) f
• Portuguese: torniquete (pt) m
• Russian: жгут (ru) m (žgut)
• Scottish Gaelic: casg-fala m
• Spanish: torniquete m
• Swedish: tryckförband n, tryckbandage n
• Thai: please add this translation if you can
• Turkish: turnike (tr)
• Ukrainian: джгут m (džhut)
• Vietnamese: garô
• Welsh: rhwymyn tynhau m

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Swedish: ^{(please verify)} tryckbandage

Verb

tourniquet (third-person singular simple present tourniquets, present participle tourniqueting, simple past and past participle tourniqueted)

1. To apply a tourniquet bandage.

Further reading

• tourniquet on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “tourniquet”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

French

Etymology

From tourner with suffix -iquet (as in berniquet).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tuʁ.ni.kɛ/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

tourniquet m (plural tourniquets)

1. unpowered carousel (playground)
2. revolving door or turnstile

Descendants

• → Catalan: torniquet
• → English: tourniquet
• → Portuguese: torniquete
• → Russian: турникет (turniket)
• → Spanish: torniquete
• → Turkish: turnike
• → Ukrainian: турніке́т (turnikét)

Further reading

• “tourniquet”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.