Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Linguistics Variant of aphaeresis.
- 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
- 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). - n. In med.: The removal of anything noxious. Large and injurious extraction of blood.
- n. In surgery, amputation.
Wiktionary
- n. medicine The removal of blood from a patient, and the removal of certain components (such as platelets) from that blood, followed by the transfusion of the filtered blood back to the donor (patient).
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Gram.) The dropping of a letter or syllable from the beginning of a word; e. g., cute for
a cute. - n. (Surg.), obsolete An operation by which any part is separated from the rest.
WordNet 3.0
- 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
- n. (linguistics) omission at the beginning of a word as in `coon' for `raccoon' or `till' for `until'
Etymologies
- From Latin aphaeresis, from Ancient Greek ἀφαίρεσις (aphairesis, "a taking away"), from ἀφαιρέειν (aphaireein) (from ἀφ- (aph-, “aph-”, variant of ἀπό (apo, "off”, “away from") before an aspirated vowel) + αἱρέειν (aireein, "to take”, “to snatch")) + -σις (-sis, suffix forming nouns of action); the grammatical sense developed in Latin. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The current state of bone marrow transplantation is that the immature blood cells are harvested using a process called apheresis which is in fact very similar to undergoing dialysis.”
“Today more than two-thirds of all donations are accomplished through a process called apheresis.”
The Wall Street Journal: A Lifesaving Legal Ruling on Organ Donation
“The agency Friday issued a heparin import alert as part of its investigation into hundreds of reports of allergic reactions in large doses of heparin sold by Baxter for heart surgery, kidney dialysis and a procedure called apheresis used in immune-disorder patients.”
“The blood flows into a sterilized machine that separates the plasma from the red blood cells and then pumps blood back into your bloodstream, in a process called apheresis.”
“The procedure had more postoperative complications than the new blood-drawing method, known as apheresis.”
“Called "apheresis," the procedure requires the donor to undergo five days of drug injections to stimulate production of specialized blood cells.”
“They can then be collected by a process called apheresis, a process used as standard-of-care in blood donations.”
“Then more recently, we developed a technology to double the volume of red cells safely collected from a volunteer blood donor, through the same "apheresis," or separation technology we use to collect platelets and plasma.”
President And CEO Interview: Haemonetics Corp. (HAE) - Brian Concannon - Yahoo! Finance
“As the judges pointed out, there is no logical basis for allowing compensation for blood, sperm and eggs while disallowing bone-marrow cells obtained through apheresis.”
The Wall Street Journal: A Lifesaving Legal Ruling on Organ Donation
“In apheresis, the patient's blood is passed through a machine that removes the stem cells (immature cells from which all blood cells develop); it is then returned to the body.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘apheresis’.
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Word Words
This used to be my nym list, but there are so many words about words, I think it's time to expand and open.
acronym, antonym, aptronym, autoantonym, autonym, bacronym, capitonym, contranym, contronym, eponym, exonym, heteronym and 120 more...
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Rare Words - A
Not just rare words, but thousands of RARE WORDS WITH DEFINITIONS.
If you want to see the definitions, too, go to
http://phrontistery.i...aba, abacinate, abactor, abaculus, abaft, abampere, abapical, abarticular, abasement, abasia, abask, abatis and 1214 more...
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phrontistery - a
from phrontistery.info
aba, abacinate, abactor, abaculus, abaft, abampere, abasia, abask, abb, abba, abbatial, abra and 1214 more...
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Give Blood. Save a Life
Words related to blood and blood donation
needle, whole blood, plasma, red blood cells, platelets, apheresis, blood type, blood pressure, hematocrit, cmv negative, fingerstick, centrifuge and 30 more...
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Medical terms or linguistic terms?
That's a terrible ablative case. Get me some morpheme, stet!
stet, stat, morpheme, morphine, ablative case, salmonella, morphology, nephrology, alethic modality, anaphoric clitic, bolus, hyperbole and 54 more...
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bintalshamsa's list
My Favorite Words
weltschmerz, perspicacity, idée fixe, invigilator, salubrious, tchotchke, ex nihilo, invidious, malapropism, naïve, sardonic, elide and 1402 more...
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the omnibus
preponderance, idioglossia, acumen, heteronym, flux, anacoluthon, metonymy, impetus, constellation, exegesis, revelatory, cloistered and 877 more...
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INTERP - VOCABULARY
The vocabulary of conference interpreting. I commend this list to those who want to know more about the profession and to those who wish to organize their knowledge about the profession. To aspirin...
retour language, A-language, B-language, C-language, relay language, take sy on relay, language booth, booth meeting, mic, mike, mission, freelance interpr... and 2086 more...
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Words about words
Most of these describe word patterns or relationships between words.
panvocalic, palindrome, anagram, transposition, antigram, reversal, isogram, alternade, trinade, beheadment, decapitation, apheresis and 149 more...
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rememberers
prolix, ageusia, animadversion, anodyne, antic, arabesque, beadle, brachymetropia, colophon, desquamation, diaphoresis, diegesis and 3251 more...
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Removal
Words related to removal.
privation, deprivation, dispossession, expulsion, extraction, abstraction, evulsion, avulsion, extrication, purgation, subduction, divestment and 8 more...
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words about words
idioglossia, lexicon, parapraxis, colloquialism, synecdoche, metonymy, diaeresis, zeugma, mnemonic, amanuensis, anacoluthon, palindrome and 78 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for apheresis.

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