Anesthesia vs. Anaesthesia — What's the Difference?

Anesthesia is a state of controlled, temporary loss of sensation or awareness that is induced for medical purposes. It may include some or all of analgesia (relief from or prevention of pain), paralysis (muscle relaxation), amnesia (loss of memory), and unconsciousness.

Insensitivity to pain, especially as artificially induced by the administration of gases or the injection of drugs before surgical operations

Total or partial loss of sensation, especially tactile sensibility, induced by disease, injury, acupuncture, or an anesthetic, such as chloroform or nitrous oxide.

Variant of anesthesia.

Local or general insensibility to pain with or without the loss of consciousness, induced by an anesthetic.

(British spelling) anesthesia

Medication that induces partial or total loss of sensation and may be topical, local, regional, or general, depending on the method of administration and area of the body affected.

Entire or partial loss or absence of feeling or sensation; a state of general or local insensibility produced by disease or by the inhalation or application of an anæsthetic.

(medicine)An artificial method of preventing sensation, used to eliminate pain without causing loss of vital functions, by the administration of one or more agents which block pain impulses before transmitted to the brain.

Loss of bodily sensation with or without loss of consciousness

(American spelling) The loss or prevention of sensation, as caused by anesthesia (in the above sense), or by a lesion in the nervous system, or by another physical abnormality.

A substance administered to reduce the perception of pain or to induce numbness for surgery and may render the recipient unconscious.

Same as Anæsthesia, Anæsthetic.

Loss of bodily sensation with or without loss of consciousness