GC: n
S: NHS – https://medical.hee.nhs.uk/medical-training-recruitment/medical-specialty-training/surgery (last access: 2 April 2025); NCBI – https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1422579/ (last access: 2 April 2025).
N: 1. c. 1300, sirgirie, “the work of a surgeon; medical treatment of an operative nature, such as cutting-operations, setting of fractures, etc.,” from Old French surgerie, surgeure, contraction of serurgerie, from Late Latin chirurgia “surgery,” from Greek kheirourgia, from kheirourgos “working or done by hand,” from kheir “hand” (from PIE root *ghes- “the hand”) + ergon “work” (from PIE root *werg- “to do”). Compare “surgeon”.
According to OED, the British sense of “session at which a Member of Parliament (or other public servant) is available locally to be consulted by constituents” is by 1951, from an extended sense in medical practice of “regular session at which a doctor receives patients for consultation” in a room or den set aside for that purpose called a surgery (by 1846). The word has been extended in Britain to other free consultations for advice.
2. surgery, branch of medicine that is concerned with the treatment of injuries, diseases, and other disorders by manual and instrumental means. Surgery involves the management of acute injuries and illnesses as differentiated from chronic, slowly progressing diseases, except when patients with the latter type of disease must be operated upon.
- Surgery is as old as humanity, for anyone who has ever stanched a wound has acted as a surgeon. In some ancient civilizations surgery reached a rather high level of development, as in India, China, Egypt, and Hellenistic Greece. In Europe during the Middle Ages, the practice of surgery was not taught in most universities, and ignorant barbers instead wielded the knife, either on their own responsibility or upon being called into cases by physicians. The organization of the United Company of Barber Surgeons of London in 1540 marked the beginning of some control of the qualifications of those who performed operations. This guild was the precursor of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
3. Surgery: surgery, surg.
- The branch of medicine concerned with the treatment of disease, injury, and deformity by operation or manipulation.
- surgery; surg: term and abbreviation officially approved by the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces.
4. Surgery: surgical procedure, surgical operation, surgery, operation.
- A medical procedure involving an incision with instruments; performed to repair damage or arrest disease in a living body.
- Phraseology: To perform a surgical operation.
S: 1. Etymonline – https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=surgery (last access: 2 April 2025). 2. EncBrit – https://www.britannica.com/science/surgery-medicine (last access: 2 April 2025). 3 & 4. TERMIUM PLUS – https://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2alpha/alpha-eng.html?lang=eng&i=1&srchtxt=SURGERY&index=alt&codom2nd_wet=1#resultrecs (last access: 2 April 2025).
SYN:
S:
CR: amputation, appendectomy, arthroscopy, Cesarean section, general surgery, hysterectomy, operating room, stent, surgical treatment, trephination, xenotransplantaion.
