heartsink

/ ˈhɑːtˌsɪŋk /

noun

1. 1. a patient who repeatedly visits his or her doctor's surgery, often with multiple or non-specific symptoms, and whose complaints are impossible to treat
   2. ( as modifier )

      heartsink patients

Word History and Origins

Origin of heartsink¹

C20: so-called because the patient's appearance in the surgery makes the doctor's heart sink

Example Sentences

“When one of their symptoms is relieved, another mysteriously appears in its place,” Groves writes about one variation of what British physicians call “heartsink patients.”

From Washington Post

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.

From Literature

A 1988 research paper by Tom O’Dowd coined a term describing such patients and the feeling doctors get when they have one: heartsink.

From Wall Street Journal

It was with a dreadful heartsink that he ran there.

From Project Gutenberg