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.
For many, care arrived too late to prevent one of the disease’s most serious complications: amputation.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 14, 2026
Diabetes is a major cause of lower limb amputation in adults.
From BBC • May 10, 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
In a video shared on Monday, she explained her numerous injuries and the surgery that allowed her to avoid an amputation.
From Salon • Feb. 23, 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.
