Rrhaphy

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A surgical procedure that involves stitching or sewing together tissues or organs
2. A medical term for the closure of a wound or incision using sutures
3. The act of repairing a tear or cut in biological tissue through stitching methods

Etymology: The ending comes from Ancient Greek "rhaphē", meaning a seam or stitched join, from the verb "rhaptein", to sew. Greek sewers and tailors used the noun for the line where two pieces of cloth were joined, and Greek physicians applied the same idea to the body, where a ridge of tissue marks a join between two halves. The English medical form keeps that sense of joining. The "-rrhaphy" ending is a combining form, a suffix that surgeons attach to the name of an organ to name the operation that sews it closed or repairs it. A herniorrhaphy repairs a hernia, and a hepatorrhaphy sews up a torn liver. Because it is built from Greek parts rather than inherited from an older English word, its meaning stays fixed: the stitching together of tissue.

Synonyms: suture, stitching, sewing, seam, ligation