amputation
Americannoun
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the act or instance of surgically removing a limb or part of a limb.
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the act of removing something by cutting, as if by surgery.
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a disability caused by the loss of a limb or part of a limb.
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Medicine/Medical. any absence or loss of a limb or part of a limb, whether congenitally or due to surgery or disease.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Although the regenerated tissues were not exact matches to the original anatomy, the researchers successfully restored all of the major structures that had been removed during amputation, including bone, tendon, ligament, and joint tissue.
From Science Daily • Jun. 17, 2026
A former engineer who underwent a life-saving amputation has built his own prosthetic limb for swimming.
From BBC • May 14, 2026
Medical procedures, including a left-leg amputation and tumor removal from his skull, have cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars—a sum surpassing what the potential settlement might yield.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 20, 2026
Lindsey Vonn is less than two months removed from a skiing accident at the Milan-Cortina Olympics that almost resulted in the amputation of her left leg.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 26, 2026
Her finger had found little hard lumps there, and Tariq had told her they were spurs of bone that sometimes grew after an amputation.
From "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
