Definitions

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

  • noun Destruction of disease-causing microorganisms to prevent infection.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The more or less complete exclusion of living microorganisms from those bodies or substances in which they produce disease, putrefaction, or fermentation. Such organisms may be destroyed, as by heat or germicides, or excluded, as by coverings or cleanliness, or their activity and multiplication may be restricted, as by the application of antiseptic substances or of cold.

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

  • noun Prevention of sepsis by excluding or destroying microorganisms.

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

  • noun The science and practice of countering microbial infection, as with the use of antiseptics, and the use of aseptic technique.
  • noun archaic Any antiseptic agent.

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

  • noun the process of inhibiting the growth and multiplication of microorganisms
  • noun (of non-living objects) the state of being free of pathogenic organisms

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

anti- +‎ sepsis

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Examples

  • Like most American doctors of the time, Bliss scorned the newfangled theories of antisepsis promoted by Dr. Joseph Lister in Britain.

    Presidential Malpractice Fergus M. Bordewich 2011

  • What our lives lack in piety we make up for in antisepsis.

    Some Pig, Some Book Anthony Esolen 2011

  • In fact, it has probably changed more than it had in the preceding hundred years, which saw the introduction of two of the preconditions for modern surgery, anesthesia and antisepsis.

    Gowns, Germs and Steel William Bynum 2011

  • By the 1880s, antisepsis had been superseded by asepsis, which involved the scrupulous attention to maintaining sterile operating conditions.

    Gowns, Germs and Steel William Bynum 2011

  • Until antisepsis and antibiotics came, the doctors were usually fighting a losing battle.

    Amputations, acid gargles and ammonia rubs: Royal Navy surgeons' 1793-1880 journals revealed Maev Kennedy 2010

  • Pilot trial to compare tolerance of chlorhexidine gluconate to povidone-iodine antisepsis for central venous catheter placement in neonates.

    Recent Neonatal Research Publications 2010

  • What our lives lack in piety we make up for in antisepsis.

    Some Pig, Some Book Anthony Esolen 2011

  • These revalations included the use of anaesthetic (reducing shock), the principles of antisepsis (greatly reducing the leading cause of death - infection), and a means of suturing internal organs (before which some women had bled to death internally following "surgery").

    Archive 2008-08-01 kittenpie 2008

  • These revalations included the use of anaesthetic (reducing shock), the principles of antisepsis (greatly reducing the leading cause of death - infection), and a means of suturing internal organs (before which some women had bled to death internally following "surgery").

    A, B, C-Section kittenpie 2008

  • The major advances in surgery in recent times are usually thought to be antisepsis and anaesthetic, and it is fascinating to see that they had antiseptic techniques.

    Early medieval surgical knowledge Carla 2010

  • The controversy surrounding surgical gloves was spurred by a growing movement promoting asepsis (complete sterility) over antisepsis (killing bacteria after they got into a wound).

    The Surgeons Who Said No to Gloves | JSTOR Daily Jessica Romeo 2020

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