Sterilizations

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The act or process of making something free from bacteria or other living microorganisms
2. The surgical procedure to permanently prevent reproduction by removing or obstructing reproductive organs
3. The removal of fertility from an individual or population through medical or surgical means

Etymology: Sterilization is the plural of "sterilization," and the noun traces back to the Latin "sterilis," meaning barren or unproductive. English took "sterile" from that Latin source, and the suffix "-ization" then turned the adjective into a noun for the act of making something sterile. The result is a word built from two familiar parts: a root meaning unable to bear, and a suffix marking a process. The word's core meaning has stayed remarkably close to its Latin sense. "Sterile" once described land that yielded no crops and women who could not conceive, and the surgical sense of the noun extends that same idea of rendering something unable to produce. The same root gives us "sterile" in the laboratory sense of free from microbes, a meaning that developed separately from the reproductive one. Because the noun is formed productively from "sterile" plus "-ization," its plural simply adds the usual "-s" to a count noun, referring to multiple procedures or instances of the process.

Synonyms: sanitizations, disinfections, cleansings, purifications, decontaminations