Etherising

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Rendering a patient unconscious or insensible before surgery by giving them the volatile anaesthetic ether
2. Administering the vapour of ether to a person so that they lose consciousness and feel no pain during an operation
3. Dosing someone with the anaesthetic gas ether in order to induce a deep, painless sleep for a medical procedure

Etymology: Ether, the anaesthetic liquid, takes its name from the Greek "aithein", meaning "to burn" or "to kindle", and the sky-filling "aither" of ancient Greek poetry, so the medical sense is named for a fluid that is light and volatile. The chemical name was applied to diethyl ether in the early nineteenth century, and its anaesthetic properties were demonstrated in 1846, when William Morton used it in a public operation in Boston. "Etherise" is simply "ether" with the suffix "-ise", which turns a noun into a verb meaning to treat with or subject to the thing named. To etherise a patient is to dose them with ether until they lose consciousness, and "etherising" is the form used for that ongoing action. The word is a plain English formation rather than a borrowing, so its history is essentially the history of the substance it names.

Synonyms: etherizing, anesthetizing, numbing, sedating

Antonyms: awakening, reviving, rousing