ablationn.
/əˈbleɪʃn/, U.S. /əˈbleɪʃ(ə)n/ 1. Surgery. Originally: surgical removal of an organ or other part of the body; the cutting away of abnormal tissue; an instance of this (now rare). In later use also: localized destruction of abnormal tissue in situ, typically by heating it or freezing it.
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the world > health and disease > healing > medical treatment > surgery > removal by surgical means > [noun]
ablation?a1425
aphaeresis1688
extirpation1706
extraction1799
?a1425 tr. Guy de Chauliac Grande Chirurgie (N.Y. Acad. Med.) f. 95v If þai [sc. emoroidez] be not mitigate, it bihoueþ for to go to ablacioun i. takyng away [Paris doyng away; L. ablacionem] of hem.
1703 T. Gibson Anat. Humane Bodies Epitomized (ed. 6) i. xvi. 107 The total ablation of it [sc. the spleen] one would think should be very fatal.
1826 Lancet 8 Apr. 57/1 The disease of the lower jaw being thus removed, I now proceeded to the ablation of that of the upper mandible.
1846 J. Miller Pract. Surg. xxvi. 350 There is safety in nothing short of summary ablation—not only of the nipple itself, but of the mamma also.
1872 J. S. Cohen Dis. Throat 207 [He] succeeded in the ablation of one of these polyps by means of a metallic nail attached to a thimble.
1918 Genetics 3 287 Studies..on ablation of the gonads in birds..show that both the testes and ovary in birds produce substances that have a profound regulatory effect on growth.
1967 Brain 90 256 It appeared that the cortex was involved in the myoclonus itself, as the jerks were abolished by ablation of the motor area.
1989 J. A. B. Collier & J. M. Longmore Oxf. Handbk. Clin. Specialties (ed. 2) i. 34 Ablation of abnormal tissue with cryotherapy, electrodiathermy, cold coagulation or lasers may give up to 90% cure rates with one course of treatment.
2004 Washington Post 1 Oct. (Home ed.) a23/1 Blair will be sedated during the 2½-hour procedure, called a catheter ablation, to correct the heart condition known as supraventricular tachycardia.
2. gen. The action or process of taking away or removing something; subtraction, removal (of something). Also: an instance of this.
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c1440 (c1395) G. Chaucer Canon's Yeoman's Tale (Cambr. Ii.3.26) l. 856 Ablacions [c1405 Ellesmere Yet forgat I to maken rehersaille Of..Oilles Ablucions and metal fusible].
c1450 Art Nombryng in R. Steele Earliest Arithm. in Eng. (1922) 36 (MED) Other subtraccioun is ablacioun of o nombre fro a-nother, that me may see a some left.
a1513 J. Irland Meroure of Wyssdome (1926) I. 34 The collacioune of all gud and ablacioune of all euill.
1577–87 W. Harrison Descr. Eng. (1877) i. ii. i. 37 The decaies and ablations seene and practised at this present.
1598 R. Hakluyt tr. in Princ. Navigations (new ed.) I. 148 Marchants haue sustained sundry damages and ablations of their goods.
1651 N. Biggs Matæotechnia Medicinæ Praxeωs 76 For if any humour of the four be putrid in feavers, it doth naturally betoken the ablation of it.
1677 T. Gale Court of Gentiles: Pt. IV iv. 261 Physic mutation is by Addition or Ablation and Substraction of some real Entitie.
a1687 H. More Coll. Several Philos. Writings (1712) Scholia on App. 227 In the real ablations of Witches and Magicians, when they happen.
1721 B. Bayly Fourteen Serm. I. i. 12 Ye see the whole Church of God in Mourning at this Time, confessing their Sins, deprecating divine Judgments, remembring, with utmost Sorrow, the Ablation of the Bridegroom.
1794 T. Taylor tr. Plotinus Five Bks. ii. 102 The debility of these [sc. souls fallen into body] is not an ablation of any thing, but the presence of something foreign to their nature, as of the pituita, or the bile, or the like disorders to which the body is subject.
1854 T. H. Skinner tr. A. Vinet Homiletics i. ii. ii. 188 Among the forms of indirect argumentation the chief place belongs to apagogic argumentation, or argumentation by ablation. In this..the orator, undertakes to show the nature of one thing by the nature of another which is opposed to it, or by the effects of its absence.
1888 Atlantic Monthly Mar. 396/2 The open-minded critical observer will undoubtedly find in our American life much of profit which has come from the ablation of custom.
1935 H. Saito Japan's Policies & Purposes 108 That [sc. bloodshed] will only be an incidental and necessary ablation that occurs in the general process of settling down.
1977 Crit. Inq. 4 223 An ablation of the letters common to both names [sc. ‘Ricardou’ and ‘Villehardouin’] leaves two words: the (Latin) preposition in, at the end, and the French word for city, ville.
2002 Signs 27 374 The very idea that the unconscious can be made conscious—and that all, therefore, is in fact conscious—carries the implicit (and wholly materialist) ablation of a binary built on seemingly outdated gender norms.
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the world > health and disease > healing > recovery > process of healing of an injury, etc. > [noun] > remission of disease or symptoms
remission?a1425
ablation1671
1671 W. Salmon Synopsis Medicinæ iii. xxxvi. 514 If in the ablation of the disease, there be not a..reparation of the strength, the sick may dye.
4. Physical Geography.
a. Originally: the wearing away or superficial erosion of a glacier. In later use chiefly: the surface loss of snow or ice as a result of melting and evaporation.
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the world > the earth > structure of the earth > formation of features > erosion or weathering > [noun] > other types of
ablation1842
the world > the earth > water > ice > body of ice > glacier > [noun] > wearing away of surface
ablation1842
1842 Edinb. New Philos. Jrnl. 33 400 M. Agassiz then notices his observations relative to the glacier itself... The ablation of the surface, resulting from the melting and the evaporation, has also been more considerable at the centre than at the edges.
1863 J. Ball Guide to W. Alps Introd. 70 The vast amount of ablation, or loss, which a glacier annually undergoes through the melting of the surface.
1906 Bull. Amer. Geogr. Soc. 38 148 They are..bands of débris on the ice surface, brought into strong relief by ablation.
1942 C. A. Cotton Climatic Accidents Landscape-making xi. 138 ‘Ice falls’..often with crowded ridges and pinnacles sharpened by ablation.
1978 Nature 5 Jan. 50/1 An iceberg's underwater shape clearly affects its stability, with most of an iceberg's ablation occurring beneath the waterline.
2006 Belfast News Let. (Nexis) 4 July 2 Our group was..collecting data on the state of the ice, its rate of ablation and a little of the physics and chemistry of what was going on.
b. More widely: the gradual removal of material from a surface by erosion, esp. by the action of the wind. Cf. sense 5b.
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the world > space > place > removal or displacement > [noun] > gradual removal of superficial material
ablation1903
1903 Geogr. Jrnl. 21 626 The patches gradually grow in area and height by the ablation of the surrounding Marl.
1929 Geogr. Jrnl. 74 323 Water only flows there during the infrequent rainstorms, but the black rocks on the surface had been polished by ablation until they shone like burnished metal.
1944 A. Holmes Princ. Physical Geol. xiii. 256 The base level for wind action is that of the water table, which may be far below sea level. The ‘pans’ of S. Africa..and the more impressive depressions and oases of Egypt and Libya have all been excavated by ablation.
2007 Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclimatol., Palaeoecol. 253 96/2 The wood shows characteristics of aeolian ablation such as deflation surfaces and aeolian polish.
5.
a. Astronomy and Astronautics. The loss of surface material from a body as a result of frictional heating as it passes through an atmosphere or other tenuous medium.
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the world > the universe > heavenly body > movement of heavenly bodies > [noun] > ablation when moving through atmosphere
ablation1927
society > travel > air or space travel > space flight > [noun] > a space shot or flight > course or trajectory of spacecraft > loss of surface material in atmosphere
ablation1927
1927 Proc. National Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 13 545 The areas of low boiling point [of the surface of a meteor] would be altered by ablation.
1951 Astrophysical Jrnl. 114 460 More direct methods of determining actual surface losses by ablation should be developed.
1977 A. Hallam Planet Earth 24 Ablation entirely destroys a high proportion..of a meteoroid entering the atmosphere.
1981 N.Y. Times 26 Apr. vi. 86/1 It is this ablation of incandescent material from such a meteorite that leaves the traditional fiery trail across the night sky.
2002 B. Preston et al. Space Weapons: Earth Wars iii. 41 Ablation would erode the nose unevenly and unpredictably.
b. Materials Science. In wider use: the removal or erosion of material from the surface of something, esp. by heat. Cf. sense 4b.
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1961 P. A. Schoek & E. R. G. Eckert in R. C. Binder et al. Proc. 1961 Heat Transfer & Fluid Mech. Inst. 193 The high heat fluxes existing at the electrode surfaces of electric arcs necessitate extensive cooling to prevent electrode ablation.
1984 E. P. DeGarmo et al. Materials & Processes in Manuf. (ed. 6) ix. 209 Ablation involves the thermal decomposition of high polymers into low-molecular-weight gaseous products and porous carbon char.
1993 Sci. Amer. Dec. 87/3 In laser ablation, a pulsed excimer laser vaporizes bits of the superconductor, which then crystallize on the substrate.
2001 T. E. Jeffries in Z. B. Alfassi Non-destructive Elemental Anal. iii. 131 The gas exits at high velocity very close to the point of ablation on the sample.
Compounds
C1. General attributive, as ablation rate, ablation zone, etc.
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1914 Lancet 4 July 38/2 Ablation experiments indicate that the posterior lobe is less essential to life.
1950 Geogr. Jrnl. 40 221 Direct influences of variation in solar activity on glacier ablation rates.
1954 Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer. 65 1263 (title) Persistent features on the inner portion of the ablation zone near the Mint Julep Research Station, Greenland Ice Cap.
1961 New Scientist 4 May 241 The blunt end [of the space capsule] acts as an ‘ablation shield’ for re-entry.
1970 Lancet 25 Apr. 868/2 Biochemical tests have been designed which..indicate whether ablation therapy may be beneficial.
1995 Independent 18 Apr. 21/2 The ablation zone is the width of the cornea treated by the laser.
2001 Review (Rio Tinto) Dec. 5/3 As the surface melted, more of the wire would be exposed on the surface, giving a simple read-out of the ablation rate.
2003 Outside Dec. 38/2 Better known as sun cups or, technically, ablation hollows, these dimple-like depressions form on snowfields that have been exposed to prolonged intense sunlight.
C2.
ablation area n. Physical Geography the part of a glacier, snowfield, etc., where ablation occurs.
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1897 Technol. Q. 10 220 Professor Burton ascended by means of a moderate slope to the surface of the ablation area.
1961 Jrnl. Glaciol. 3 850 The glacier [in a fjord] cannot reach equilibrium by changing the extent of its ablation area.
1991 Geogr. Mag. Feb. (Analysis Educ. Suppl.) 3/1 The equilibrium firn line separates the accumulation area of the glacier from the ablation area and usually occurs where accumulation equals ablation at the end of the ablation season.
ablation moraine n. Geology a deposit of ablation till; the material forming such a deposit.
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1909 R. S. Tarr in Zeitschr. f. Gletscherkunde 3 85 The material in the ablation moraines does not have an even distribution over the ice surface.
1942 C. A. Cotton Climatic Accidents Landscape-making xi. 145 Much rock debris that falls on to the surface [of the glacier]..reappears as ‘ablation moraine’.
2006 Geomorphology 82 255 Erratics and circular ablation moraines are superimposed on the blockfields and lateral meltwater channels are eroded into them.
ablation till n. Geology rock debris which has accumulated as a result of the ablation of the ice in which it was previously embedded.
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1957 R. F. Flint Glacial & Pleistocene Geol. vii. 120 A simple provisional classification of tills based on their occurrence and origin..may be suggested:..2. Ablation till, deposited from drift in transport within or upon the terminal area of a shrinking glacier.
1990 A. S. Trenhale Geomorphol. Canada vi. 91 This..is replaced by a thicker, sandy and bouldery ablation till in the mountains near the international border.
2005 Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, Mass.) (Nexis) 16 Jan. The glaciers had also dropped stones above the lodgment till. This is called ablation till.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2009; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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