Biopsies

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A medical procedure where tissue samples are taken for examination to diagnose diseases, particularly cancer, through microscopic analysis
2. The act of extracting a small piece of tissue from a living organism for diagnostic purposes, often used to investigate abnormalities
3. A clinical technique involving the removal of tissue fragments to assess for disease presence, enabling accurate medical diagnosis and treatment planning

Etymology: "Biopsies" is the plural of "biopsy", so its history belongs to the singular. The root is the Greek "bios", meaning life, joined to "opsis", meaning sight or a looking, which gives the sense of examining living tissue. The English word was borrowed from French "biopsie", which was itself built from those Greek elements, and the French form entered the language with the same meaning: a look at living tissue taken from the body for diagnosis. The plural simply follows the usual English pattern of changing the final "y" to "ies" and adding "-es", so each test or sample is counted separately. The "-opsy" ending is shared with words such as "autopsy", where "auto-" means self, so an autopsy is a looking at the body itself, while a biopsy looks at living matter.

Synonyms: tissue samples