Plural of appendectomy; surgical operations to remove a person's appendix.
From Greek appendix (something attached) + -ektomia (cutting out). Modern medical terminology combined Greek roots with the suffix -ectomy meaning surgical removal, becoming standard in the 1800s.
Appendectomies are one of the most common emergency surgeries worldwide, yet we still don't fully understand why humans even have an appendix—it seems useless to us now, but 200 million years ago it helped our ancestors digest plants.
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