Implant

How to spell implant

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce implant

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does implant mean?

1. verbTo insert or fix something firmly into a body, surface, or the mind.
2. nounA device or piece of tissue placed inside the body, usually by surgery.

Implant in a sentence

• verb

  Surgeons will implant a tiny pacemaker beneath the collarbone.

• noun

  The cochlear implant restored much of her hearing.

• verb

  The advert was designed to implant a single slogan in the memory.

• noun

  Each implant must be checked at the annual dental review.

Where does implant come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin plantare, meaning 'to fix in place' or 'to set in the ground', the same root that gives us the everyday word 'plant'. The Latin verb itself came from planta, the sole of the foot, because to plant a seedling was originally to press it down firmly with the foot. Medieval Latin combined it with the prefix in-, here meaning 'in' or 'into', to form implantare, 'to engraft or set within'. English borrowed it through French in the 1500s, at first in the figurative sense of fixing an idea or feeling deep in the mind. The modern medical and surgical sense, placing a device or tissue inside the body, grew in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The spelling stays close to 'plant', which is the easiest hook for remembering it: you simply set 'im-' in front.

How the word is built

• im- (in, into)
• plant (to set, fix firmly)