Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An artificial device used to replace a missing body part, such as a limb, tooth, eye, or heart valve.
  • noun Replacement of a missing body part with such a device.
  • noun Linguistics Prothesis.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Addition; affixion; appendage.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Surg.) The addition to the human body of some artificial part, to replace one that is wanting, as a log or an eye; -- called also prothesis.
  • noun (Gram.) The prefixing of one or more letters to the beginning of a word, as in beloved.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun medicine An artificial replacement for a body part, either internal or external.
  • noun linguistics, prosody prothesis

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun corrective consisting of a replacement for a part of the body

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Greek, addition, from prostithenai, prosthe-, to add : pros-, pros- + tithenai, to put; see dhē- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Via Latin, from Ancient Greek πρόσθεσις (prosthesis, "addition"), from προστίθημι (prostithēmi, "I add"), from πρός (pros, "towards") + τίθημι (tithēmi, "I place").

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Examples

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  • JM knows that prosthesis is beloved.

    May 11, 2011