leucotomy

American

[loo-kot-uh-mee] / luˈkɒt ə mi /

noun

Chiefly British Surgery.

plural

leucotomies

prefrontal lobotomy.

leucotomy British

/ luːˈkɒtəmɪ /

noun

the surgical operation of cutting some of the nerve fibres in the frontal lobes of the brain for treating intractable mental disorders See also lobotomy

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of leucotomy

First recorded in 1935–40; leuco- + -tomy

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.

"The actual bilateral prefrontal leucotomy can be done by a properly trained neurosurgeon in six minutes and seldom takes more than 10 minutes."

From BBC • Jan. 29, 2021

It was against this background that Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz developed the lobotomy - or leucotomy as he called it - in 1935.

From BBC • Jan. 29, 2021

Later, after Marsh had qualified as a neurosurgeon, a modification of the procedure, known as a limbic leucotomy, was still in use.

From BBC • Jan. 29, 2021

During its heyday in the 1940s and '50s, prefrontal leucotomy, or lobotomy, was performed on more than 40,000 people in the United States and 10,000 in Western Europe.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 3, 2016

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023