surgery

Noun

surgery (countable and uncountable, plural surgeries)

1. (uncountable, usually) The act or process of medical intervention involving incisions to remove, repair, or replace a part of a body; an instance of this process (a procedure).
   • Surgery is often necessary to prevent cancer from spreading.
   • When performed poorly, a labiaplasty — a procedure to reduce the size of the labia minora, and one of the fastest-growing cosmetic surgeries worldwide — can also damage nerves, leading to genital pain and loss of sexual sensation.2022 October 17, Rachel E. Gross, “Half the World Has a Clitoris. Why Don’t Doctors Study It?”, in The New York Times

   Synonyms:

   operation, bright lights and cold steel

2. The medical specialty related to the performance of surgical procedures.

   Synonyms:

   operating room, operating theatre, theatre, bright lights and cold steel

3. A room or department where surgery is performed.
   • The physician's proper place was in the library, not in the surgery.2006, Philip Ball, The Devil's Doctor, Arrow, published 2007, page 51
4. (UK) A doctor's office; a clinic.
   • I dropped in on the surgery as I was passing to show the doctor my hemorrhoids.

   Synonyms:

   office

5. (UK) A medical practitioner’s office hours.
   • Surgery is from six to seven o’clock. If you wanted to bring a dog in, that would be your best time.1972, James Herriot, All Creatures Great and Small
6. (UK) Any arrangement where people arrive and wait for an interview with certain people, particularly a politician. cf. clinic.
   • Our MP will be holding a surgery in the village hall on Tuesday.
7. (slang, bankruptcy) A pre-packaged bankruptcy or "quick bankruptcy".
8. The production of a manifold by removing parts of one manifold and replacing them with corresponding parts of others.
9. (broadly, figuratively) Drastic changes made to anything.
   • The C# compiler evidently performs some major surgery on your code each time you use the await keyword.2019, Ian Griffiths, Programming C# 8.0: Build Cloud, Web, and Desktop Applications, page 716