Clinical sign
Etymology
From “clinical,” which traces to Greek “klinē” (bed) via “klinikos” (of the sickbed), reflecting medicine practiced at the bedside, and “sign,” from Latin “signum” (a mark or token). The pairing quietly encodes a whole method: knowledge gathered by observation at the bedside, marked and recorded rather than merely reported.
noun phrase · /KLIN-ih-kuhl SYN/
An objective indication of illness that a doctor can observe or measure, as opposed to what the patient feels.
What it names
The doctor’s half of the evidence — a fever reading, a rash, a swollen gland — the observable clues that can be checked by someone other than the sufferer.
Example
The patient reported no pain, but the yellow tint of his eyes was a clinical sign the doctor could not ignore.
Related idea
A sign is objective — visible or measurable by others; a symptom is subjective — felt and reported by the patient. Pain is a symptom because only you feel it; a high temperature is a sign because anyone with a thermometer can confirm it.