Meanings
nounCheyne-Stokes (uncountable)
- attributiveuncountablemedicineAn abnormal pattern of breathing involving apnea alternating with periods of compensatory hyperventilation and with smooth, gradual transitions between the two, characteristic of those in a coma or suffering cardiac or cerebral episodes.
He recognized Cheyne-Stokes tendencies in his respiration—but like everything the symptom served only to turn him in toward his emotion.
1934, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, chapter IX, in Malcolm Cowley, editor, Tender is the Night […], New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1951, →OCLC, book III (Casualties: 1925), page 154
Origin
From the names of Scottish physician John Cheyne (1777–1836) and Irish physician William Stokes (1804–1878).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
APA
Cheyne-Stokes. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Cheyne-Stokes
MLA
“Cheyne-Stokes.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Cheyne-Stokes. Accessed November 3, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Cheyne-Stokes,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Cheyne-Stokes.
Source: Cheyne-Stokes on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.