Anesthesia

How to spell anesthesia

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce anesthesia

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does anesthesia mean?

1. nounA medically induced loss of sensation or awareness, used to prevent pain during surgery or other procedures.

Anesthesia in a sentence

• The surgeon waited until the anesthesia took full effect before making the first incision.

• General anesthesia kept the patient unconscious for the entire operation.

Where does anesthesia come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word comes from the Greek anaisthesia, which literally meant 'without feeling' or 'lack of sensation', built from the negative prefix an- ('not, without') and aisthesis ('sensation, perception'). The same aisthesis root sits inside 'esthetic' (or 'aesthetic'), the study of sensory beauty, so anesthesia and esthetics are surprisingly close relatives. The term was revived in the nineteenth century when surgeons first used ether and chloroform to abolish pain during operations; the American physician and writer Oliver Wendell Holmes is often credited with popularising it around 1846. The American spelling drops the second 'a' that the original Greek and the British 'anaesthesia' preserve, which is the main thing to remember: in the American form, the tricky '-aes-' cluster collapses to a single 'e'. Knowing the parts (an + esthe + ia) helps you keep the 'th' and the '-sia' ending in the right order.

How the word is built

• an- (without)
• esthe- (from aisthesis: feeling, sensation)
• -ia (noun suffix denoting a state or condition)

British and American spelling

Anesthesia is the American spelling. British English spells it anaesthesia.