AMPUTATE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does amputate mean? 

• AMPUTATE (verb)
  The verb AMPUTATE has 1 sense:

1. remove surgically

  Familiarity information: AMPUTATE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• AMPUTATE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they amputate    ... he / she / it amputates   
Past simple: amputated   
Past participle: amputated   
-ing form: amputating   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Remove surgically

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

amputate; cut off

Context example:

amputate limbs

Hypernyms (to "amputate" is one way to...):

remove; take; take away; withdraw (remove something concrete, as by lifting, pushing, or taking off, or remove something abstract)

"Amputate" entails doing...:

cut (separate with or as if with an instrument)

Domain category:

medicine; practice of medicine (the learned profession that is mastered by graduate training in a medical school and that is devoted to preventing or alleviating or curing diseases and injuries)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "amputate"):

slough off (separate from surrounding living tissue, as in an abortion)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

Did he amputate his foot?

Derivation:

amputation (a surgical removal of all or part of a limb)

amputation (a condition of disability resulting from the loss of one or more limbs)

amputator (a surgeon who removes part or all of a limb)

 Context examples 

The right foot was missing, amputated neatly at the ankle.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Although the researchers used only a small number of human samples - including bone marrow vessels in a tibia coming from an amputated leg, and blood samples from 12 volunteers - the results are rather interesting, and a little concerning.

(Bone-Like Particles Found Travelling through Human Bloodstream, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

He was taken out from under the ruins, alive, but sadly hurt: a beam had fallen in such a way as to protect him partly; but one eye was knocked out, and one hand so crushed that Mr. Carter, the surgeon, had to amputate it directly.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Half a dozen fingers pointed at the amputated wheel—he stared at it for a moment and then looked upward as though he suspected that it had dropped from the sky.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)