iron lung

English

Noun

iron lung (plural iron lungs)

1. A pneumonic device for assisted breathing.

   Synonym: negative pressure ventilator

   Hyponym: Both respirator

   • 1953 October 19, “A Better Break for Polio Patients”, in LIFE‎^[1], Time Inc, page 127:

     To a polio victim who can no longer breathe for himself nothing is more disheartening than the thought of spending every hour of his life flat on his back in an iron lung.

2. (Cockney rhyming slang) A bung; a bribe.
   • 2023, James J. McIntyre, Jimmy Two Guns: The Life and Crimes of a Gangland Lawyer:

     Most criminal cases, when I was practising, were paid for by SLAB, which kept a vice-like grip on the purse strings, paying a pittance no self-respecting plumber would get out of bed for, so an iron lung (bung) was the order of the day when dealing with the professionals of the underworld.

Translations

a pneumonic device for assisted breathing

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 鐵肺／铁肺 (zh) (tiěfèi)

• Finnish: rautakeuhko (fi), tankkirespiraattori
• French: poumon d’acier (fr) m
• German: eiserne Lunge (de) f
• Irish: scamhóg iarainn f
• Japanese: 鉄の肺 (てつのはい, tetsu no hai)
• Polish: żelazne płuco n
• Romanian: plămân de oțel (ro) m
• Russian: аппара́т иску́сственного дыха́ния m (apparát iskússtvennovo dyxánija), аппара́т иску́сственной вентиля́ции лёгких m (apparát iskússtvennoj ventiljácii ljóxkix), желе́зное лёгкое n (želéznoje ljóxkoje)
• Spanish: pulmón de acero m, ventilador de presión negativa m, pulmotor m
• Swahili: pafu la chuma
• Swedish: järnlunga c
• Tagalog: bagang pangyero

Further reading

• iron lung on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• ruling on