anesthesia: Meaning and Definition of

an•es•the•sia

Pronunciation: (an"us-thē'zhu), [key]
— n.
  1. general or local insensibility, as to pain and other sensation, induced by certain interventions or drugs to permit the performance of surgery or other painful procedures.
  2. general loss of the senses of feeling, as pain, heat, cold, touch, and other less common varieties of sensation.
  3. absence of sensation due to psychological processes, as in conversion disorders.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.
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