Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Anaesthesia
Loss of feeling, especially induced for surgery.
The Greek roots
ἀν-
an-
without
αἴσθησις
aísthēsis
sensation
Literally: “without sensation”
The story of the word
Coined when ether first let surgeons operate on patients feeling nothing — a state of 'no-sensation'.
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
In a sentence
Under anaesthesia she felt none of the operation.