Nephrectomies

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Surgical procedures involving the removal of one or both kidneys
2. Operations performed to treat kidney diseases or tumors that mandate removal
3. Medical interventions aimed at excising renal tissue for health management or disease prevention

Etymology: "Nephrectomies" is the plural of "nephrectomy," the surgical removal of a kidney. The noun is built from two Greek elements: "nephr-," from Greek "nephros," meaning kidney, and "-ectomy," from Greek "ektomē," meaning a cutting out. The second element appears in many medical terms, such as appendectomy and mastectomy, where it names the excision of a particular organ or part. The pairing is a modern coinage made from classical building blocks, as is typical of surgical vocabulary. Greek physicians had words for kidneys and for cutting, but they had no operation called a nephrectomy, since surgeons of antiquity did not remove kidneys deliberately. The term was assembled later from the same Greek stock that medical science drew on for new names.