Uterotomy

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A surgical technique that consists of cutting through the uterine wall to gain access for medical examination or treatment
2. A medical operation that involves making an incision in the uterine wall to facilitate treatment or examination
3. A procedure involving an incision made through the uterine wall to allow access for medical purposes

Etymology: Uterotomy is a plain technical coinage, built in modern medical Latin from two parts: "uter", the Latin word for the womb, combined with the combining form "utero-", and the Greek-derived suffix "-tomy", from "tomē", a cutting, which appears in words like "appendectomy" and "lobotomy". Put together, the name describes exactly what the operation is: a cut into the womb. The word belongs to the same family as "hysterotomy", which uses the Greek word "hystera" for the womb, and both were formed by doctors using classical building blocks rather than inherited English vocabulary. Its meaning stays literal, with no shift from a concrete sense to an abstract one.