Apheresis
//əˈfɪəɹɪsɪs// noun
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Elision, suppression, or complete loss of a letter or sound (syllable) from the beginning of a word, such as the development of special from especial. Canada, US, countable, uncountable
- 2 a procedure in which blood is drawn and separated into its components by dialysis; some are retained and the rest are returned to the donor by transfusion wordnet
- 3 The removal of blood from a patient, and the removal of certain components (such as platelets) from that blood, followed by the transfusion of the filtered blood back to the donor (patient). Canada, US, countable, specific, uncountable
- 4 (linguistics) omission at the beginning of a word as in ‘coon’ for ‘raccoon’ or ‘till’ for ‘until’ wordnet
- 5 Extirpation or extraction of a superfluity (especially a pathological one) from the body, especially blood. Canada, US, countable, general, obsolete, uncountable
Etymology
From Latin aphaeresis, from Ancient Greek ἀφαίρεσις (aphaíresis, “a taking away”), from ἀφαιρέω (aphairéō) (from ἀφ- (aph-), variant of ἀπό (apó, “off, away from”) before an aspirated vowel) + αἱρέω (hairéō, “to take; to snatch”)) + -σις (-sis, suffix forming nouns of action); the grammatical sense developed in Latin.
More for "apheresis"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.