anesthesia
noun
Simple meaning
Loss of bodily sensation with or without loss of consciousness.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
anihstheezhuhSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ænɪsˈθiʒə
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Loss of bodily sensation with or without loss of consciousness
American spelling
The loss or prevention of sensation, as caused by anesthesia (in the above sense), or by a lesion in the nervous system, or by another physical abnormality.
looselymetonymicoften proscribed
A medication that provides the service of temporarily blocking sensation.
medicineAmerican spellingCanadian spelling
An artificial method of preventing sensation, used to eliminate pain without causing loss of vital functions, by the administration of one or more agents which block pain impulses before transmitted to the brain.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Loss of bodily sensation with or without loss of consciousness
Used this way, anesthesia is a reasonably familiar word with a faintly unfavourable edge. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use anesthesia
- “Before the surgery, the patient was given anesthesia to prevent pain.”noun
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: loss of bodily sensation with
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.