tri|age

tri|age «tree AHZH; especially for 1 and 2 also TRY ihj», noun, transitive verb.

–noun.

1. the act of sorting, as according to kind or quality.

2. something sorted out, as the broken coffee beans separated from the whole coffee in sorting.

3. the act or fact of assigning priories according to urgency or expediency, especially in military and political planning and in the choice of giving medical treatment to casualties most likely to survive when only limited help is available: »

In the West, there is increasing talk of triage, a commonsense if callous concept that teaches that when resources are scarce they must be used where they will do the most good (Time).

–transitive verb.

to categorize and assign priority for treatment according to triage principles: »

…over two hundred were admitted to the hospital, where the severely injured were promptly triaged to the operating rooms… (New York Review of Books).

╂[< Old French triage < trier to pick, cull]