Word
diagnostic
Phoneticsdi·ag·nos·tic
US/ˌdaɪəɡˈnɑstɪk/
UK/dˌaɪəɡnˈɒstɪk/
Definitions
01medical/technical identification
adj. used to help identify a disease or a technical problem.
adj. relating to or used in the identification of a medical condition or a technical malfunction.
“The doctor ordered a diagnostic test to see why the patient was feeling dizzy.”
“The hospital invested in advanced diagnostic imaging equipment to improve the accuracy of early-stage cancer detection.”
Technical
Usage
Often modifies nouns like 'test', 'tool', or 'procedure'.
Synonyms
02educational assessment
adj. a test given at the start of a course to see what you already know.
adj. designed to assess a learner's strengths, weaknesses, and prior knowledge before instruction begins.
“We took a diagnostic quiz on the first day of the Spanish class.”
“The diagnostic assessment revealed that while the students had strong vocabulary skills, they struggled significantly with complex grammatical structures.”
Academic
Synonyms
03a tool or test
n. a specific test or program used to find a fault or problem.
n. a procedure, program, or tool used to identify the cause of a problem or the nature of a condition.
“The mechanic ran a diagnostic on the car's engine to find the leak.”
“After the system crash, the IT department ran a full suite of diagnostics to determine if the failure was hardware-related or a software bug.”
Technical
Usage
Frequently used in the plural form 'diagnostics' when referring to computer routines.
Real-World Examples
“Improving accuracy is important because the average human error rates involving diagnostic images are estimated to range from 3 to 5 percent, which translates to about 40 million errors worldwide each year .” “If you do, then this, like other diagnostic tests in the public system, will be free.” Etymology
From Ancient Greek διαγνωστικός (diagnōstikós), adjective from διαγιγνώσκω (diagignṓskō, “to distinguish, diagnose”).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Collocations
Word family
Domains
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/diagnostic