Phlebotome

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A small surgical lancet once used to open a vein for bloodletting ; a biting sandfly belonging to the genus Phlebotomus that spreads certain diseases
2. An old blood-letting blade used to cut into a vein ; a tiny blood-sucking sandfly of the Phlebotomus genus that can transmit parasitic illness
3. A sharp instrument formerly employed for lancing veins during bloodletting ; a small fly of the sandfly family whose bite can carry disease

Etymology: "Phlebotome" is a surgical instrument, a small lancet once used to open a vein for bloodletting. Its name is built from two Greek elements: "phlebo-", from "phleps" (genitive "phlebos"), meaning "vein", and "-tome", from "temnein", "to cut", the same root that gives English "anatomy" and "-tomy" in words like "appendectomy". Literally, then, the word means "vein-cutter." The surprise lies in its sibling. "Phlebotome" is a doublet of "fleam," an older English word for the same bloodletting lancet. Both came into the language through the same route, but one arrived as a worn, native-feeling English word while the other was reshaped from the Greek and retained its classical form. The two words are from the same source but took different paths into English, and they show how a single Greek term can split into two English words over time.

Synonyms: lancet