Homotransplantation

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The process of transferring tissue or organs from one individual to another of the same species, involving the surgical grafting of living tissue
2. A surgical procedure in which tissues or organs are moved from one organism to another within the same species for the purpose of transplantation
3. The act of transplanting biological material between two genetically similar individuals, typically within the same species, for medical purposes

Etymology: "Homotransplantation" is a technical compound built from the Greek-derived prefix "homo-", meaning "same", and "transplantation", the act of moving living tissue or an organ into another body. Its meaning is therefore literal: a transplant between members of the same species, as opposed to a graft from another species. The prefix is the interesting part. "Homo-" in this sense comes from Greek "homos", "same", and it is unrelated to the Latin "homo", "human being", which gave us words like "human" and "homicide". Readers who see "homo-" in a medical term may easily assume a link to humanity, but here the prefix simply means "identical" or "same", the same root that appears in "homogeneous" and "homonym". Because the word is a transparent combination of two existing parts, it needed no special coinage story; it was assembled from established medical vocabulary to describe a distinction that transplant surgery had to make, between tissue taken from a donor of the same species and tissue from a different one, known as heterotransplantation.