Rale

Quick meaning: Rale is a noun meaning (medicine, now chiefly in the plural) An abnormal clicking, rattling or crackling sound, made by one or both lungs and heard with a stethoscope, caused by the popping open of airways collapsed by fluid or exudate, or sometimes by pulmonary edema.

Meaning

(medicine, now chiefly in the plural) An abnormal clicking, rattling or crackling sound, made by one or both lungs and heard with a stethoscope, caused by the popping open of airways collapsed by fluid or exudate, or sometimes by pulmonary edema.

Example Sentences

But after all the educated classes have a right to expect that their medical man will know the difference between a mitral murmur and a bronchitic rale.

If you were to tell a patient that he had a ‘rhonchus’ in his chest, he would imagine that it was something formidable, while, if you said that he had a ‘râle’ he would not be alarmed.

Michael Colot, aged fifteen days, of a strong constitution, not having been sick from the time of birth, was, on the 22nd of November, taken with a violent cough, accompanied with a rale which could be heard without recourse to auscultation.

Word Forms

• rales

Synonyms for rale

Depending on context, synonyms include crackles.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include subcrepitant, crepitant, crackles, crepitation, crepitus, resonance.

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