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sawbones

Definitions

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

  • noun A physician, especially a surgeon.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A surgeon.

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

  • noun A nickname for a surgeon.

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

  • noun slang A surgeon.

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

  • noun a physician who specializes in surgery

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

saw +‎ bones

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Examples

  • My regular sawbones is out of town, so I'm seeing someone new.

    I used to know how to feel better 2007

  • The sawbones was a plump little cove with gooseberry eyes and trailing whiskers who prodded my injury and pronounced it ugly, but seemed to think I ought to be able to hobble.

    Watershed 2010

  • The sawbones was a plump little cove with gooseberry eyes and trailing whiskers who prodded my injury and pronounced it ugly, but seemed to think I ought to be able to hobble.

    Flashman And The Tiger Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- 1999

  • 'I thought everybody know'd as a sawbones was a surgeon.'

    The Pickwick Papers Charles Dickens 1841

  • 'I thought everybody know'd as a sawbones was a surgeon.'

    The Pickwick papers 1836

  • ‘I thought everybody know’d as a sawbones was a surgeon.’

    The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club 2007

  • "sawbones"; for both the organ and the body are not only living, but they are still feverish and extremely sensitive; it is important to avoid too great irritation; inflammation of any kind would be dangerous.

    The Modern Regime, Volume 1 Hippolyte Taine 1860

  • This, though, is a government which has the finesse of an 18th-century sawbones operating in the days before anaesthetic.

    George Osborne hopes spending cuts will boost growth, but what if they don't? 2010

  • The sawbones backed away, along with the fans closest to the scene, and the cops handled Chase a lot less delicately than they would have otherwise.

    DIAMOND RUBY Joseph Wallace 2010

  • The English Surgeon: Storyville10.45pm, BBC4The sawbones in question is Henry Marsh, a renowned British neurosurgeon.

    Tonight's TV highlights Rebecca Nicholson 2010

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