surgeon
Pluralsurgeons
- 1A doctor who performs operations on people or animals; a medical professional trained in surgery.
The surgeon repaired the torn ligament in a two-hour operation.
An equine surgeon at the veterinary hospital set the racehorse's fractured leg.
Note
A hand-worker by origin. Greek kheirourgós joins kheír, "hand," and érgon, "work," so the name rests on the work of the hands. Latin made it chirurgus, and Vulgar Latin *chīrurgiānus wore down in Anglo-Norman to surgien, the form Middle English took over. Surgery descends from the same Latin chīrūrgia, which is why the two words still match so closely.
- 2A tropical marine fish, known as a surgeonfish, bearing sharp blade-like spines at the base of its tail.
A powder-blue surgeon drifted over the coral, nibbling algae from the rocks.
Surgeons defend themselves with the razor-sharp spines folded against their tails.
Similartang
Note
Here the doctor's title has gone to the reef. The word is a clipped form of surgeonfish, the fishes of the family Acanthuridae. They carry sharp, scalpel-like spines on either side of the base of the tail, and those spines can cut deeply. The blades are what tie these fish to the operating doctor. Handle one carelessly and the name explains itself.
Practice
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Origin
It comes from Middle English surgien, borrowed from Anglo-Norman surgien, from Vulgar Latin *chīrurgiānus and Latin chīrūrgia ("surgery"), ultimately from Ancient Greek χειρουργός (kheirourgós), built from χείρ (kheír, "hand") and ἔργον (érgon, "work").