What does bradycardia mean?
Bradycardia is a medical noun denoting an abnormally slow heart rate, conventionally defined in adults as fewer than sixty beats per minute. The word comes from Greek roots meaning "slow heart" and belongs firmly to clinical vocabulary, appearing in cardiology reports, emergency medicine, and physiology rather than casual speech. Importantly, bradycardia is not always a problem: highly trained endurance athletes commonly show it at rest because their efficient hearts pump more blood per beat. It becomes concerning when accompanied by symptoms such as dizziness, fatigue, fainting, or shortness of breath, which may indicate problems with the heart's electrical conduction system, medication effects, or other underlying conditions. Clinicians classify specific types, such as sinus bradycardia, and treat symptomatic cases with medication adjustment, pacing, or other interventions. Its natural antonym is tachycardia, an abnormally fast heart rate.
nounAn abnormally slow heart rate, typically defined as fewer than 60 beats per minute in an adult.
- An abnormally slow heart rate, generally under 60 beats per minute in adults, which may be a harmless adaptation or a sign of underlying disease.
"The athlete's resting bradycardia was a benign adaptation to years of endurance training."
"The monitor flagged episodes of bradycardia during the patient's sleep study."
"Divers often develop transient bradycardia when submerged, part of the mammalian diving reflex."
Usually treated as an uncountable mass noun in clinical writing; a plural form exists for referring to distinct instances or recurrent episodes.
"The Holter recording captured several brief bradycardias overnight."
Elite athletes can have hearts so well-trained that their resting pulse dips into bradycardia territory — a sign of fitness, not illness.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of bradycardia
The word bradycardia derives from ancient Greek: "bradys" meaning slow, and "kardia" meaning heart. It was formed in modern medical Latin on the model of tachycardia, its opposite, as physicians systematized cardiac terminology. The same Greek root "kardia" underlies a wide family of English medical terms including cardiac, cardiogram, and myocardium.
Related word forms
How bradycardia is actually used
Bradycardia is a clinical term used primarily in medical and scientific contexts; it is not part of everyday conversation. It carries a neutral connotation in itself — whether it is pathological depends on symptoms and context, so clinicians distinguish between asymptomatic and symptomatic bradycardia.
Easily confused with bradycardia
Tachycardia is an abnormally fast heart rate (above 100 beats per minute), the opposite of bradycardia.