To administer ether as an anesthetic; to treat or expose with ether; to make ethereal or immaterial.
From 'ether' plus the suffix '-ize' (to cause or make). Emerged as a medical term in the 1840s when ether became widely used for surgical anesthesia.
Surgeons literally changed the world by learning to 'etherize' patients—before 1846, people had to be held down screaming during amputations, but ether meant surgery could finally be humane.
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