Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The absence of gas from all or part of the lung, due to failure of expansion of the alveoli.
  • noun A congenital condition characterized by incomplete expansion of the lungs.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Imperfect dilatation, especially of the air-cells of the lungs of newly born children.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun medicine The collapse of a part of or the whole lung caused by inner factors rather than a pneumothorax.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun collapse of an expanded lung (especially in infants); also failure of pulmonary alveoli to expand at birth

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[New Latin : Greek atelēs, incomplete (a-, not; see a– + telos, end; see telo–) + Greek ektasis, stretching out (from ekteinein, to stretch out : ek-, out; see ecto– + teinein, to stretch; see epitasis).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Greek ἀτελής 'incomplete' + ἔκτασις 'extension', from ἔκτείνειν 'extend', from ἐξ 'out' + τείνειν 'stretch'.

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