Ostomies

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. surgical techniques that involve forming openings in the body to allow waste to be expelled outside of it
2. medical interventions that create a passage through the skin or abdominal wall for waste elimination
3. Operations that create a controlled exit from internal organs through the body surface to discharge wastes

Etymology: "Ostomies" is the plural of "ostomy", and the singular was never the original term. It was back-formed from words like colostomy, ileostomy and gastrostomy, which name operations that create an artificial opening from an organ to the body's surface. Those older terms are built from Greek elements: "stoma", meaning mouth or opening, combined with the names of the affected organs, such as colon, ileum and gaster (stomach). Speakers noticed the shared ending "-ostomy" across this family of procedures and, reasoning backwards, pulled it out as a standalone noun. The result is a word that describes the whole category rather than one specific operation. A colostomy is one kind of ostomy, and so is an ileostomy, so the plural "ostomies" refers to several different surgeries grouped together by their common purpose: giving waste a route out of the body.