terminal wean
n.— «In twelve cases they performed a procedure called, in only mildly obscurantist language, a “terminal wean.” (Although neither doctors nor nurses literally “pull the plug,” the process is dramatic enough. After a doctor or, more often, a nurse turns down the respirator setting, death usually follows quickly, most often in an hour or two.)» —by Robert Zussman Intensive Care : Medical Ethics and the Medical Profession July 15, 1992. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
How and why do words from one language find their way into another? Vietnamese, for instance, includes many words borrowed or adapted from French, a vestige of colonialism. For example, the Vietnamese word for “train station,” ga, comes...
David from Nashville, Tennessee, wonders about a word he’s heard only in that city: gherming. Someone who ghermsmakes a habit of pestering country-music celebrities or acting overly familiar with them in public. Nashville songwriter Marc Alan...