Meaning & use
angina
Last updated
Meaning
noununcountablemedical
A squeezing pain in the chest that happens when the heart muscle does not get enough blood, often during exercise or stress.
Grammar: No plural and no article is needed: she suffers from angina.
Patterns
- suffer from angina
- angina attack
My grandfather's angina flares up whenever he climbs the hill to the village.
The doctor prescribed a spray to relieve the angina during an attack.
Cold weather can make angina worse for some people.
Common combinations
- suffer from angina
- Several members of the walking club suffer from angina and carry medication.
- angina attack
- He sat down and rested until the angina attack passed.
- stable angina
- Stable angina usually comes on with effort and eases with rest.
- unstable angina
- Unstable angina can appear at rest and needs urgent treatment.
- angina pain
- The angina pain spread from his chest to his left arm.
Synonyms and how they differ
- angina pectoris
- This is the full medical name, used in clinical writing, while plain 'angina' is the normal everyday short form.
- chest pain
- This is a general symptom with many possible causes, whereas angina names one specific heart-related cause.
- heart attack
- A heart attack involves lasting damage to heart muscle, while angina is a temporary warning pain that eases with rest or medicine.
Word family
- anginal adjective
- relating to or caused by angina, as in anginal pain
- antianginal adjective
- describing a drug that prevents or relieves angina
Commonly confused: angina or angina (throat)? angina or arrhythmia?
angina vs angina (throat)
In older British usage, angina could mean a severe sore throat; today the word almost always means heart-related chest pain.
angina vs arrhythmia
An arrhythmia is an irregular heartbeat, whereas angina is pain caused by reduced blood flow to the heart.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'angina' correctly?
Choose one answer.
Angina is an uncountable noun for chest pain from the heart, so it fits 'his angina flares up'. The other options treat it as a countable noun or a verb.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “angina”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.