Word.ws English Dictionary

rocket surgery

rocket surgery noun: anything overly complex, detailed, or confusing.

Noun

rocket surgery (uncountable)

  1. (humorous, idiomatic) Anything overly complex, detailed, or confusing.
    • It's not rocket surgery. Just screw in the bulb and flip the switch.

Synonyms of rocket surgery

Origin of rocket surgery

A deliberate mixed metaphor combining rocket science and brain surgery.

Questions about rocket surgery

What does rocket surgery mean?
Rocket surgery means anything overly complex, detailed, or confusing.
What part of speech is rocket surgery?
Rocket surgery is a noun.

Words near rocket surgery in the dictionary

  1. rocket sleds
  2. rocket stage
  3. rocket stages
  4. rocket surgeon
  5. rocket surgeons
  6. rocket surgery
  7. rocket up
  8. rocket-launcher
  9. rocket-launchers
  10. rocket-pack
  11. rocket-packs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rocket surgery (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “rocket surgery.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rocket_surgery. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.