chirurgeon

English

Alternative forms

• chirurgian, chirurgion, chyrurgeon

Etymology

From Middle English cirurgien, borrowed from Old French cirurgiien, itself borrowed from Vulgar Latin *chīrurgiānus or formed from the root of cirurgie, borrowed from Latin chirurgia, ultimately from Ancient Greek χειρουργός (kheirourgós). Doublet of surgeon.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kaɪ.ˈɹɜːdʒən/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)dʒən

Noun

chirurgeon (plural chirurgeons)

1. (archaic or historical) A doctor or surgeon.
   • 1561, Hieronymus Brunschwig trans. Jhon Hollybush[sic] (pseudonym of Miles Coverdale), A most excellent and perfecte homily apothecarye.... Arnold Birckman, Collen (Cologne). Page 6 verso, section Of One That Hath the Palsye

     Let every Physicton or Chirurgeon therefore rule him after this, and well and exactly knowe, and searche the cause of the Disease, that he may more certaynly knowe how to heale the patient.

   • 1664 January 18 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “January 8th, 1663–1664”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to X), London: George Bell & Sons […]; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1893–1899, →OCLC:

     At noon to the 'Change, and there long, and from thence by appointment took Luellin, Mount, and W. Symons, and Mr. Pierce, the chirurgeon, home to dinner with me and were merry.

   • 1688, A[phra] Behn, Oroonoko: Or, The Royal Slave. A True History, London: […] Will[iam] Canning, […], →OCLC, pages 213–214:

     All we cou'd do cou'd get no more Words from him; and we took care to have him put immediately into a healing Bath, to rid him of his Pepper; and order'd a Chirurgeon to anoint him with healing Balm, which he ſuffer'd, and in ſome time he began to be able to Walk and Eat; […]

   • 1728, Thomas Otway, “The Atheist, or, the Second Part of the Solider's Fortune”, in The Works of Mr. Thomas Otway‎^[1], volume 2, London, page 44:

     If I chance to be hang'd, being a luſty Sinewy Fellow, the Corporation of Barber-Chirurgeons, may be, beg me for an Anatomy, to ſet up in their Hall.

   • 1850, William Harrison Ainsworth, George Cruikshank, Hablot Knight Browne, Ainsworth's Magazine‎^[2], page 481:

     On the following day, Tresham was seized with a sudden illness, and making known his symptoms to Ipgreve, the chirurgeon who attended the prison was sent for, and on seeing him pronounced him dangerously ill, though he was at a loss to explain the nature of his disorder.

   • 1889, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, chapter XXXI, in Micah Clarke: […], London: Longmans, Green, and Co […], →OCLC:

     Noting that there was something amiss, he had hurried down for a skilled chirurgeon, whom he brought out to us under an escort of scythesmen.

   • 1893, Julia Taft Bayne, Molly Webster:

     Ye healthful Potions ye Chirurgeon sends from ye gallipots Power out,
     Ye bedd vpheaues, ye homs is shaken, & ye stooles are hvrl'd aboute.

   • 1903, Howard Pyle, The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, Part II, Chapter First, page 56

     And when he had come there the King's chirurgeon presently attended upon him - albeit his wounds were of such a sort he might not hope to live for a very long while.

   • 1943, Louis Paul [pseudonym; Leroi Placet], chapter 5, in This Is My Brother, New York, N.Y.: Crown Publishers, page 99:

     We have not come far from ignorance; denied the telephone and the text book, a medieval chirurgeon was a titan of science compared to me.

   • 1962, Gustaf E[lmer] Lindskog, Averill A[braham] Liebow, William W[allace] L[umpkin] Glenn, “Trauma to the Chest”, in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery with Related Pathology, New York, N.Y.: Appleton-Century-Crofts, →LCCN, section “Introduction”, page 2:

     On rare occasions medieval chirurgeons were called upon to treat patients in whom portions of herniated lung had become incarcerated in perforating intercostal wounds.

   • 1993, Joan Schenkar, “A New Way to Pay Old Debts”, in Ellen Donkin, Susan Clement, editors, Upstaging Big Daddy: Directing Theater as If Gender and Race Matter, Ann Arbor, Mich.: The University of Michigan Press, →ISBN, page 258:

     This unnecessary process of recomposition can also attack a playwright most effectively in the last two weeks of rehearsal, when the production is usually in pieces, the actors restive, and a quick solution to everyone’s discomfort appears to be an amputation of one of the limbs of the script. (In the way, say, that medieval chirurgeons, failing a cure, would open the patient’s veins just to seem to be doing something.)

   • 2015, Laurens De Vos, “Always Looking Back at the Voyeur: Jan Fabre’s Extreme Acts on Stage”, in George Rodosthenous, editor, Theatre as Voyeurism: The Pleasures of Watching, Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, part I (Voyeurism and Directing the Gaze), pages 35 and 47–48:

     I am Blood and History of Tears (2005), in which not only tears but urine and sweat are examined, continue this series of performances in which Fabre (almost like a medieval chirurgeon) cuts open the body to study its fluids and let them run free. […] The show remains an unreal story, and the subversion of any claims to its high stakes and its alleged realness comes from both medieval chirurgeons who appear as mirroring figures at both sides of the sorceress.

   • 2021 June, Caspian Gray, “Empty Houses”, in Wendy N. Wagner, editor, Nightmare, number 105:

     My therapist had suggested I “get more sunlight” like she was a fucking medieval chirurgeon, so I was making an effort to stand around in the yard every afternoon for the amount of time it took me to drink a beer.

Related terms

• chirurgical
• chirurgery, chirurgie