Definition of "cauterize"

cauterize

/ˈkɔːtəɹaɪz/

verb
third-person singular simple present cauterizes, present participle cauterizing, simple past and past participle cauterized
1. (American spelling, Canadian spelling, Oxford British English) To burn, sear, or freeze tissue using a hot iron, electric current or a caustic agent.
  Quotations
  […] Lanfrank takes Notice of Tract. 3. Doct. 3. cap. 18. ſaying, "I have ſeen many who being full of Humours, have made an Iſſue under the Knee, before due Purgation had been premis'd; whence, by reaſon of the too great Defluxion of Humours, the Legs tumified, ſo that the cauterized Place corrupted, and a Cancer (or rather cacoethic Ulcer) was thereby made, with which great Difficulty was cur'd."
  1732, George Smith, Institutiones Chirurgicæ: or, Principles of Surgery, [...] To which is Annexed, a Chirurgical Dispensatory, [...], London: Printed [by William Bowyer] for Henry Lintot, at the Cross-Keys against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet, page 254