circumsect

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin circumsectus perfect passive participle of circumsecō (“to cut around”), from circum- (“around”) + secare (“to cut”).

Verb

circumsect (third-person singular simple present circumsects, present participle circumsecting, simple past and past participle circumsected)

1. (surgery, transitive) To cut around the circumference (of some part of an organ or structure).
   • 1931, James Clyde Munch, Bioassays: a handbook of quantitative pharmacology‎^[1]:

     The eye is circumsected near the margin of the iris, exposing the lens in the cup formed by the anterior half of the eye.

   • 1967, Landauer, Thomas K, Readings in physiological psychology; the bodily basis of behavior‎^[2]:

     If the stimulated cortical zone is circumsected so that most of the pathways available for intracortical elaboration of the excitation are severed, conditioned reflexes still occur to the cortical conditional stimulus.

   • 1978, Finger, Stanley, Recovery from brain damage : research and theory‎^[3]:

     Finally, a special knife which can be rotated after insertion into the brain to circumsect a specific region completely has been devised and used with great advantage to disjoin the hypothalamus from the brain stem.

Related terms

• circumsection