Syringotomy

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A surgical procedure involving the incision into a cyst or sac to facilitate drainage or access for treatment
2. A medical operation performed to cut into a fluid-filled cavity to alleviate pressure or remove its contents
3. The act of making an opening in a sac or cyst in order to allow for drainage or further intervention

Etymology: The Greek word "sûrinx" originally meant a pipe or reed, the same instrument-like object that gave the Greek god Pan his panpipes, but in medical Greek it came to name a fistulous sore or abscess, a tube-like channel running through flesh. Surgeons who needed to open such channels built a term from it and added "-tomy," from Greek "tomē," meaning a cutting. The result, "syringotomy," describes cutting into a fluid-filled sac or channel so it can drain or be reached for treatment. The word reached English through French, where the equivalent "syringotomie" is the model for the form. Its parts stack neatly: "syringo-" supplies the idea of a tube or hollow channel, and "-tomy" supplies the act of cutting, as in "appendectomy" or "lobotomy."