cardiac

cardiac — adjective

1. concerning the heart — the muscular organ that pumps blood — and the diseases or

1.adjectiveB2
Definition

concerning the heart — the muscular organ that pumps blood — and the diseases or medical treatments connected with it.

Example

The paramedics treated a man who had gone into cardiac arrest at the train station.

collocation: cardiac arrest

After his cardiac surgery, Mr. Okonkwo spent a week recovering in the hospital.

collocation: cardiac surgery

Common collocations
  • cardiac arrest
  • cardiac failure
  • cardiac surgery
  • cardiac muscle
  • cardiac event
  • cardiac patient
  • cardiac unit
  • cardiac disease
  • cardiac rhythm
  • cardiac monitor
Synonyms
  • heart

    informal equivalent; use 'heart' in everyday speech (e.g. heart surgery), reserve 'cardiac' for medical/technical contexts.

  • coronary

    narrower meaning — refers specifically to the arteries that supply blood to the heart muscle; not interchangeable with all uses of 'cardiac'.

  • cardiovascular

    broader term encompassing both the heart and the blood vessels (arteries, veins, capillaries).

Grammar Patterns

cardiac + noun

Usage Note

Cardiac is almost always used directly before a noun (attributive position). Predicative uses — e.g. 'His condition is cardiac' — are extremely rare in standard English. In everyday conversation, the simpler word 'heart' is preferred; use cardiac in medical writing, clinical reports, or when a precise technical register is needed.

Common Mistakes

After the accident, the doctors said his injury was cardiac.
After the accident, the doctors said his injury was related to the heart.
cardiac is rarely used after a linking verb; it normally appears directly before the noun it modifies.
I had a cardiac check-up yesterday.
I had a heart check-up yesterday.
In casual speech, 'heart' sounds more natural than the technical term 'cardiac.'

Word family

  • cardiology
    nounB2
  • cardiologist
    nounB2
  • cardiovascular
    adjectiveC1
  • cardio-
    prefixC1

Synonym discussion

Sense: adjective/1

Cardiac is the medical and technical term for anything related to the heart organ itself. In everyday English, the noun 'heart' is used as an adjective instead — people say 'heart surgery' far more often than 'cardiac surgery' outside of hospitals. Coronary is a subset word that refers specifically to the arteries encircling the heart (the coronary arteries); you hear it in 'coronary heart disease' or 'coronary bypass'. Cardiovascular is the broadest of the four, covering both the heart and the entire network of blood vessels — a cardiologist treats cardiac conditions, but a public-health campaign talks about 'cardiovascular health' to include stroke risk as well. Use cardiac when writing a medical report or discussing clinical anatomy; use heart for casual conversation; use coronary when narrowing focus to the arteries; use cardiovascular when the blood-vessel system is also relevant.

cardiac ↗heart ↗coronary ↗cardiovascular ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

Etymology

GreekLatinFrenchEnglish

Cardiac traces back through Latin 'cardiacus' to Greek 'kardiakos', which comes from 'kardia' meaning 'heart'. The Greek root also gives us 'cardio-' (used in compounds like cardiology) and, through Latin, the word 'cordial' — originally meaning 'of the heart' before shifting to mean 'warm and sincere'.