noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The surgical procedure for making an incision in the abdominal wall to gain access into the abdominal cavity. Performed either as exploratory surgery, or as the first step in an abdominal operation.

   "Itʼs known as a laparotomy, which involves cutting open your whole abdomen."

2. 2
   surgical incision into the abdominal wall; often done to examine abdominal organs wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

abdominal sectionabdominal sectionceliotomyceliotomycoeliotomylobotomy

Example

More examples

"Itʼs known as a laparotomy, which involves cutting open your whole abdomen."

Etymology

From laparo- + -tomy.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.