mostly, impeachment, flatline

mostly, flatline, impeachment

QUOTATION OF THE DAY
"I did a lot of things that were mostly right."
GOV. ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, mostly, flatline, impeachment at his impeachment trial in Illinois.

"He is a gentleman of strict conscience, disdainful of all littleness and meanness and ready on the shortest notice to die any death you may please to mention rather than give occasion for the least impeachment of his integrity. He is an honourable, obstinate, truthful, high-spirited, intensely prejudiced, perfectly unreasonable man."
--from BLEAK HOUSE (1852-1853) by Charles Dickens, born on this day in 1812


In the meantine this Shorter O.E.D. ($175, including a CD-ROM), with about 600,000 definitions, is a remarkable resource, but it also offers some glimpses of the issues being faced.
For included here are 2,500 new entries that treat language more as living menagerie than as natural history museum. Along with restless leg syndrome and flatline come more questionable entries, where use becomes the main criterion for inclusion.

紐約時報 Menagerie, Not Museum, for Words That Live

A flatline is an electrical time sequence measurement that shows no activity and therefore when represented, shows a flat line instead of a moving one. It almost always refers to either a flatlined electrocardiogram, where the heart shows no electrical activity (asystole), or to a flat electroencephalogram, in which the brain shows no electrical activity (brain death). Both of these specific cases are involved in various definitions of death. Some consider one who has flatlined to have been clinically dead, regardless of their eventual resuscitation or lack thereof, whereas others insist that one is alive until the moment of brain-death. This is mostly used in the medical industry when a person's pulse has stopped, indicating a flat line on the heart monitor.

This medical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

-most
suffix
used to mean 'furthest':
John O'Groats is the northernmost part of the British mainland (= the part that is farther to the north than any other part).

mostly
adverb
In the smaller villages, it's mostly (= usually) very quiet at nights.
The band are mostly (= Most of them are) teenagers, I think.

Full Definition of impeach

1. transitive verb

2. 1a :  to bring an accusation againstb :  to charge with a crime or misdemeanor; specifically :  to charge (a public official) before a competent tribunal with misconduct in officec :  to remove from office especially for misconduct
3. 2:  to cast doubt on; especially :  to challenge the credibility or validity of <impeach the testimony of a witness>