heartsink

n. a feeling of dismay or disappointment; in medical use, heartsink patient, a patient that is difficult or impossible to help. Subjects: English, Medical

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Citations: 1937 Jimmy Fiddler Washington Post (Mar. 10) “In Hollywood” p. 13: Imagine the heart-sink that comes to an adult star when he receives the script and finds himself teamed for scene after scene with Deanna Durgin or Freddie Bartholomew. 1974 Lewis Thomas The Lives of a Cell (May 31) p. 58 @ (Jan. 1, 1995): The less immense, more finite items, of a size allowing the mind to get a handhold, like nations, or space technology, or New York, are hard to think about without drifting toward heartsink. 1989 Marilyn Dunlop Toronto Star (Dec. 30) “‘Heartsink’ patients overwhelm doctors” p. F2: Heartsink patients may fit into four categories, the editorial says. Dependent clingers, entitled demanders, manipulative help-rejecters and self-destructive deniers. They can overwhelm and exasperate their doctors by their behavior. 1992 Cormac Mccarthy Blood Meridian (May 5) p. 98 @ : The woman looked up. Neither courage nor heartsink in those old eyes. 1995 Jenny Tabakoff Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) (Sept. 18) “Beware Of Heartsinkers, Even If They Do Have One Useful Function” p. 13: There are any number of heartsink words and phrases in the English language, and they are proliferating. Words such as “forum,” “convention” and “summit” send a signal to most people’s brains: Turn off now. 2000 Seau-Tak Cheung @ Dundee, Australia sBMJ (London, England) (Apr.) “Maybe there are also heartsink doctors”: There is no doubt that heartsink patients are a great source of stress for their doctors, but at the same there must exist “heartsink doctors”—doctors that patients dread seeing, not because of what they may tell them, but because of the doctor’s personal characteristics. 2001 Nick Hornby How to Be Good (Aug. 1) p. 128: The patients that dismay me the most are the ones I see a lot whom I can’t help. We call them heartsink patients, for obvious reasons, and someone once reckoned that most partners in practice have about fifty heartsinks on their books. 2002 Robert Ashton This is Heroin (Oct. 1) p. 105: I knew then, with total heartsink, that he was on heroin, because that’s what heroin addicts have to do—steal from anyone or anywhere for cash to buy their stuff.

Posted 22 Jul 05 | Permalink | Tell a Friend