Definitions

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

  • noun Total or partial loss of sensation, especially tactile sensibility, induced by disease, injury, acupuncture, or an anesthetic, such as chloroform or nitrous oxide.
  • noun Local or general insensibility to pain with or without the loss of consciousness, induced by an anesthetic.
  • noun A drug, administered for medical or surgical purposes, that induces partial or total loss of sensation and may be topical, local, regional, or general, depending on the method of administration and area of the body affected.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See anæsthesia.

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

  • adjective Same as anæsthesia, anæsthetic.

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

  • noun medicine A method of preventing sensation, used to eliminate pain.
  • noun The loss or prevention of pain, as caused by anesthesia.

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

  • noun loss of bodily sensation with or without loss of consciousness

Etymologies

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

[New Latin anaesthēsia, from Greek anaisthēsiā, insensibility : an-, without; see a– + aisthēsis, feeling (from aisthanesthai, aisthē-, to feel; see au- in Indo-European roots).]

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