Tracheostomy

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A surgical procedure in which an incision is made into the trachea, through the neck, and a tube inserted so as to make an artificial opening in order to assist breathing.
  2. 2
    a surgical operation that creates an opening into the trachea with a tube inserted to provide a passage for air; performed when the pharynx is obstructed by edema or cancer or other causes wordnet

Etymology

From tracheo- + -stomy.

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