triage
n.n. the process of deciding which patients or tasks are the most urgent and need help first. In computing, it is the system that checks if a request is valid before sending it to the server.
n. the process of sorting and prioritizing patients or tasks based on the severity of their condition or urgency. In a technical context, it refers to the initial validation of a request before it is processed by a server.
The hospital staff performed triage to see who needed immediate help.
The server uses a triage system to filter out invalid requests and prevent the database from being overwhelmed by spam.
Effective triage in emergency medicine requires a rapid assessment of vital signs to ensure that the most critical cases receive immediate intervention, while less severe injuries are managed in a secondary area.
From French triage, from trier (“to sort”).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Last updated May 19, 2026