Skip to main content
plastic surgery

plastic surgery

99 3.6
Operations that repair body parts or change them to improve looks
  • noun
  • /ˈplæstɪk ˈsɜrdʒəri/
  • Specialized
translation icon : cirugía plástica
  • After her accident, she needed plastic surgery to reconstruct her facial features.
  • plastic surgery procedures
  • cosmetic plastic surgery
  • facial plastic surgery

Like there's no way to become, you know, prettier except for plastic surgery.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • For the last decade cosmetic plastic surgery has out grossed every other medical procedure, bar none, by several thousand percent.

  • Let's face it, there's a growing popularity of plastic surgery just to improve one's appearance.

  • Do this, Max, are you thinking about getting plastic surgery in the few years?

  • So I, when I think of plastic surgery, well, I know nothing about it.

  • You get plastic surgery like we talked about.

  • Mum is against plastic surgery.

  • There has been a recent boom in plastic surgery since the pandemic.

  • At one time, they had told me in the hospital that plastic surgery could eventually work wonders.

    Fiction book (2002)
  • But you get to blend both worlds for me because I have plenty of questions about plastic surgery and being a doctor.

  • Without plastic surgery, he wouldn't last five minutes on this case.

Synonyms

reconstructive surgery
vsplastic surgery
  • Specialized
14 3.9

An operation that fixes body parts so they look and work better after injury or disease

covers repair and cosmetic reconstruction of body tissues

How Specialized

reconstructive surgery
  • Specialized
14 3.9
plastic surgery
  • Specialized
99 3.6
minor surgery
  • Specialized
4 3.6

Surface Forms

Morphology

plastic + surgery

The noun combines 'plastic' and 'surgery' in a way that gives a partial clue: 'plastic' (malleable/shapable) suggests altering or reshaping and 'surgery' indicates an operation, so learners could infer it involves altering the body. However, the everyday sense of 'plastic' as a synthetic material can mislead, and the specific scope (reconstructive vs cosmetic) and etymological sense are not fully predictable without prior exposure, so it is only partly transparent.

Etymology

Plastic surgery comes from an old word: plastic once meant 'to shape' or 'to mold', not the modern plastic material. Think of a surgeon shaping skin like an artist shapes clay, and that's why plastic surgery means operations to repair or reshape the body.