Definitions

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

  • noun A small straight knife with a thin sharp blade used in surgery and dissection.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A small light knife, which may be held like a pen, used in anatomical dissection and in surgical operations, having the back of the blade straight or nearly so, the edge more or less convex, and the point sharp.

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

  • noun (Surg.) A small knife with a thin, keen blade, -- used by surgeons, and in dissecting.

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

  • noun A small straight knife with a very sharp blade used for surgery, dissection and craftwork.

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

  • noun a thin straight surgical knife used in dissection and surgery

Etymologies

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

[Latin scalpellum, diminutive of scalper, scalprum, knife, from scalpere, to scratch, cut; see skel- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin scalpellum, from scalprum ("knife"), from scalpere ("to cut").

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