triage

/ˈtɹiː.ɑːʒ/US/ˈtɹi.ɑʒ/

triage noun: assessment or sorting according to quality, need, etc., especially to determine how resources will be allocated.

Noun

triage (countable and uncountable, plural triages)

Assessment or sorting according to quality, need, etc., especially to determine how resources will be allocated.
- Let us think of triage, and remember the word's origins. It began with French wool growers in the eighteenth century, but its most illuminating use comes from eighteenth century coffee bean growers, who sorted their beans into best, middling, and broken. The last category came to be known as...2004, Paul M. Levitt, Dark Matters: a Novel, →ISBN, page 40
- [Mike Davis] notes that the 'late capitalist triage of humanity' has 'already taken place'.2007, Jeremy Harding, “It Migrates to Them”, in London Review of Books, 29:5, p. 26
The process of sorting patients so as to determine the order in which they will be treated (for example, by assigning precedence according to the urgency of illness or injury).
A facility within a hospital that screens walk-in patients and determines which department or clinic to send them to. (See also triage center.)
- I knew where most of the medical supplies were kept. I went to triage. The room was chaos.2013 11, John Macdonald, Question Authority, Balboa Press, →ISBN, page 170
- Triage was busy and noisy, and suddenly I had no energy.2016 August 24, Virginia Frusteri Sollars, And Some Will Triumph: Stories of the Mentally Ill in a Correctional Setting and the Nurses Who Care for Them, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN
(broadly) The process of prioritizing bugs to be fixed.
That which is picked out, especially broken coffee beans.
(UK) A marshalling yard, classification yard.
- Similarly, any group of sidings is known to army railway personnel as a "triage". This word is derived from the French verb trier, which means literally "to sort," and hence "triage" has become the common army expression for a marshalling yard.1943 September and October, “Military and Civil Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 257

Verb

triage (third-person singular simple present triages, present participle triaging, simple past and past participle triaged)

To subject to triage; to prioritize.
- Then, over 2001 and '02, he laid off 150 employees at MGI Software, a company he'd first "triaged" as a consultant for NPV Associates with his partner and fellow UCC alumnus Henry Eaton, before stepping in as CEO. Firing 30 per cent of the work force was necessary to save the company, insists NPV...2009 February 1, Linda Diebel, “Existential crises and a rage to save the Liberals”, in Toronto Star, archived from the original on 19 Sep 2010
- With the ambulance service the calls are triaged, so your response time can be anything from six minutes for a life-threatening call to an hour and a half for a broken limb.2020 January 2, Daniel Puddicombe, “SWR paramedics keeping passengers safe”, in Rail, page 34

triage meaning in Indonesian

triage in Indonesian

the process of sorting patients: triase

Examples of triage in a sentence

Let us think of triage, and remember the word's origins.2004, Paul M. Levitt, Dark Matters: a Novel, →ISBN, page 40:
Some have expressed concerns that it can lead to inaccurate diagnoses, bad advice on where to seek treatment (triage), and increased anxiety (cyberchondria).2021 March 29, Natalie Grover, “Looking up health symptoms online less harmful than thought, study says”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived...
She was told to hydrate and try some Tylenol and if it got worse, she was recommended to go to triage for evaluation.2023 June 13, Gilda Cinnella, Renata Beck, Antonio Malvasi, Practical Guide to Simulation in Delivery Room Emergencies, Springer Nature...
The unreads were staggering; I'd have to triage them later.2022, Michelle McCraw, Boss Me:

All 19 example sentences with triage

Forms of triage

Noun
plural	triages
Verb
third-person singular present	triages
present participle	triaging
past participle	triaged
past	triaged

Origin of triage

Borrowed from French triage, from trier (“to sort”).

Words formed from triage

Phrases with triage

triage centers

Words that rhyme with triage

3 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about triage

What does triage mean?: Triage means assessment or sorting according to quality, need, etc., especially to determine how resources will be allocated.
What is triage in Indonesian?: Triage in Indonesian is triase. See Triage meaning in Indonesian.
How do you use triage in a sentence?: Let us think of triage, and remember the word's origins.
What part of speech is triage?: Triage can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce triage?: Triage is pronounced /ˈtɹiː.ɑːʒ/ (UK).
What is the plural of triage?: The plural of triage is triages.

Words near triage in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: triage (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-triage.wav.

Cite this entry: “triage.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/triage. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.