Amputations

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The medical procedure involving the surgical removal of a limb or body part is often performed to address severe injury, disease, or infection
2. This process entails the surgical excision of an extremity or body segment, typically required due to trauma, illness, or other medical conditions
3. The act of surgically cutting off a limb or body section due to injury or illness

Etymology: "Amputations" is simply the plural of "amputation", so the history belongs to the singular. That noun came into English from Middle French "amputation", which was itself borrowed from Latin "amputātiō", and the Latin meant "pruning", as in cutting back the branches of a tree. The underlying verb, Latin "amputare", combined "ambi-", meaning "around" or "about", with "putare", meaning "to cut" or "to trim", so the idea of lopping something off was built into the word from the start. The surgical sense arrived because the same act of cutting away a part seemed to apply to the body as well as to a plant. A tree that was pruned lost a branch, and a limb that was removed was likewise severed from the rest of the body, which is why a horticultural image carried over so neatly into medicine.

Synonyms: removals, detachments, extractions, surgical removals, cutting off

Antonyms: attachments, additions, inclusions, integrations, joinings