blood pressure

• IPA^(key): /ˈblʌd ˌpɹɛʃə(ɹ)/

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blood pressure (countable and uncountable, plural blood pressures)

1. The pressure exerted by the blood against the walls of the arteries and veins; it varies during the heartbeat cycle, and according to a person's age, health and physical condition.
   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “XVII, XVIII, and XIX”, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

     She threw her head back and inflated the lungs. “UPJOHN!” she boomed, rather like someone calling the cattle home across the sands of Dee, and I issued a kindly word of warning. “Watch that blood pressure, old ancestor.” “Never you mind my blood pressure. You let it alone, and it'll leave you alone. UPJOHN!”

   the great majority of people who have serious conditions from high blood pressure suffer debilitating illness

   The nurse spent all day taking blood pressures at the hospital.

• diastolic blood pressure
• systolic blood pressure