scan
noun/skæn/
/skæn/
- [countable] a medical test in which a machine produces a picture of the inside of a person’s body, or a baby inside its mother's body, on a computer screen
- to have a brain scan
- At twenty weeks she had a scan and the midwife told her the baby looked fine.
Extra ExamplesTopics Healthcareb2, Life stagesb2- A scan revealed a small fracture in the hip area.
- The doctors took a scan of his thigh bone.
- The brain scan revealed no signs of injury.
- A routine scan revealed abnormalities in the foetus.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- body
- whole-body
- bone
- …
- get
- have
- obtain
- …
- confirm something
- indicate something
- reveal something
- …
- data
- results
- scan of
Definitions on the go
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- [singular] the act of looking quickly through something written or printed, usually in order to find something
- a scan of the newspapers
- I had a quick scan down the guest list but couldn’t see my name.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- cursory
- quick
- scan of
Word Originlate Middle English (as a verb in sense (5)): from Latin scandere ‘climb’ (in late Latin ‘scan (verses)’), by analogy with the raising and lowering of one's foot when marking rhythm. From ‘analyse (metre)’ arose the senses ‘estimate the correctness of’ and ‘examine minutely’, which led to ‘look at searchingly’ (late 18th cent.).
Check pronunciation:
scan