Xenoplasty

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Surgical grafting of living tissue or organs taken from an animal of a different species into a human or other recipient
2. The transplanting of cells, tissue or an organ between two individuals of different species in a medical procedure
3. A transplant operation in which biological material from one species is implanted into the body of another species

Etymology: Xenoplasty is a surgical term built from two Greek elements: "xenos," meaning "stranger" or "foreign," and "plassein," meaning "to mold" or "to form." In medicine, it refers to the transplantation of tissue or organs taken from one species and placed into a member of another species. The "-plasty" ending is the standard medical suffix for reconstructive surgery, which is why the word sounds like a relative of "plastic surgery" and related procedures. The Greek "xenos" is the same root that gives English "xenophobia" and "xenon," and its meaning shows the logic of the coinage. A "xenograft" or xenotransplant is, literally, a graft from a foreign source, and xenoplasty names the act of reshaping or repairing tissue with such material. Because the word is a deliberate modern construction from classical parts, its meaning follows directly from those parts rather than from any change in sense over time.

Synonyms: xenotransplantation