Meaning & use
interne
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Meaning
nouncountableold-fashioned
A recent medical school graduate who is receiving supervised practical training in a hospital.
Grammar: Countable noun; plural is internes. In modern English, the spelling intern is far more common.
Patterns
- work as an interne
- an interne at a hospital
- a medical interne
After graduating, she worked as an interne at a large city hospital.
The interne examined the patient under the supervision of a senior doctor.
In the past, an interne often lived at the hospital and worked very long hours.
Word forms
| plural | internes |
|---|
Common combinations
- medical interne
- He was a medical interne at the county hospital.
- work as an interne
- She worked as an interne for two years before opening her own practice.
- interne at a hospital
- The interne at the hospital was on call every other night.
- young interne
- The young interne was eager to learn from the experienced nurses.
Synonyms and how they differ
- intern
- The standard modern spelling and term for the same role; use this instead of interne in current writing.
- resident
- A doctor in a later stage of training after the internship; a resident has more experience and responsibility than an interne.
- trainee
- A general word for someone learning a job; it does not specifically mean a medical graduate.
Word family
- internship noun
- The period of supervised practical training for a medical graduate or other trainee.
Commonly confused: interne or intern? interne or intern (verb)?
interne vs intern
Intern is the modern, standard spelling; interne is an old-fashioned variant. Use intern in all current contexts.
interne vs intern (verb)
The verb intern means to confine someone, especially for political reasons; it is unrelated to the medical training sense.
Practice
Which sentence uses the old-fashioned spelling 'interne' correctly?
Choose one answer.
Option 0 correctly uses 'interne' as a noun for a medical trainee. Option 1 is wrong because 'interne' is not a general office trainee; option 2 is wrong because 'interne' is not a verb; option 3 is wrong because 'interne' is not an object.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “interne”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.