Meaning & use
bronchitis
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Meanings
noununcountablemedical
an illness in which the tubes that carry air into the lungs become swollen and sore, causing a cough.
Grammar: No plural and no a/an: she has bronchitis; a bad case of bronchitis.
Patterns
- have bronchitis
- get bronchitis
- a case of bronchitis
- suffer from bronchitis
He was coughing all night and the doctor said he had acute bronchitis.
Smoking makes you much more likely to develop chronic bronchitis.
She stayed home for a week with a bad attack of bronchitis.
noununcountablemedical
a lasting form of this illness, common in smokers, in which the cough never fully goes away.
Grammar: Often used with 'chronic' to name the long-term disease: chronic bronchitis.
Patterns
- chronic bronchitis
- develop chronic bronchitis
Years of smoking had left him with chronic bronchitis.
Doctors warn that chronic bronchitis is often caused by tobacco smoke.
Common combinations
- acute bronchitis
- Acute bronchitis usually clears up within a few weeks.
- chronic bronchitis
- Chronic bronchitis is one of the conditions grouped under COPD.
- a chest infection like bronchitis
- Her cough sounded like a chest infection such as bronchitis.
- come down with bronchitis
- Half the office came down with bronchitis last winter.
- treat bronchitis with antibiotics
- Doctors do not usually treat viral bronchitis with antibiotics.
Synonyms and how they differ
- chest infection
- A broader, less technical term for any infection in the chest, of which bronchitis is one type.
- cold
- A cold is a mild illness of the nose and throat; bronchitis is more serious and affects the airways in the lungs.
Word family
- bronchial adjective
- relating to the bronchi, the air tubes in the lungs.
- bronchus noun
- one of the two main tubes that carry air into the lungs.
- bronchitis noun
- the illness itself; the same word used as a general noun.
Commonly confused: bronchitis or bronchial?
bronchitis vs bronchial
'Bronchial' is the adjective describing the tubes (bronchial tubes), while 'bronchitis' is the illness. You have bronchitis; you do not 'have bronchial'.
Practice
Choose the sentence that uses 'bronchitis' correctly.
Choose one answer.
'Bronchitis' is uncountable, so 'diagnosed with acute bronchitis' is correct. Options 0 and 2 wrongly use 'a bronchitis' as if it were countable, and option 3 invents a plural 'bronchitises'.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “bronchitis”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.