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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Linguistics Variant of aphaeresis.
  2. n. Medicine A procedure in which blood is drawn from a donor and separated into its components, some of which are retained, such as plasma or platelets, and the remainder returned by transfusion to the donor. Also called hemapheresis.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. In grammar, the omission of a letter or an unaccented syllable from the beginning of a word. Examples in English are round, adv., for around, vantage for advantage, squire for esquire, ‘mid for amid, pon for upon, etc. The most common form of apheresis is that called aphesis (which see).
  2. n. In med.: The removal of anything noxious. Large and injurious extraction of blood.
  3. n. In surgery, amputation.

Wiktionary

  1. n. The removal of blood from a patient in order that certain components (such as platelets) may be removed before transfusion back to the donor.
  2. n. The loss of letters or sounds from the beginning of a word, such as the development of term from term.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. The dropping of a letter or syllable from the beginning of a word; e. g., cute for acute.
  2. n. An operation by which any part is separated from the rest.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a procedure in which blood is drawn and separated into its components by dialysis; some are retained and the rest are returned to the donor by transfusion
  2. n. (linguistics) omission at the beginning of a word as in `coon' for `raccoon' or `till' for `until'

Examples

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Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘apheresis’.

Comments

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  • biocon In addition, apheresis means surgical excision of an abnormal part of the body; amputation; extraction (of teeth (OED). Feb 12, 2012

  • frogapplause Thanks! Sep 19, 2010

  • Prolagus I logged in to type apheretically. Sep 18, 2010

  • yarb I'll be orthodox and agree with apheretically. Sep 17, 2010

  • mollusque A heretical suggestion: apheretically. Sep 17, 2010

  • frogapplause I still want to know if it's possible to use it as an adverb. Sep 17, 2010

  • yarb I'm not sure what the adverbial form would be. I'd say "I gave blood via apheresis". Sep 17, 2010

  • frogapplause The only way to learn anything around here is to ask questions. Is it possible to say, "I gave blood apheresisly/apheresically??" (sp?) Sep 17, 2010

  • reesetee It's also called aphesis. Apr 16, 2009

  • mollusque OED spells it aphæresis. Apr 13, 2009

  • bananniethree Hmmm...why is this not in the OED? Apr 13, 2009

‘apheresis’ has been looked up 1597 times, added to 10 lists, commented on 11 times, and has a Scrabble score of 14.