sawbones

Old-timey physician nickname

Sawbones is informal, often humorous slang for a doctor or surgeon.

The term dates from an era when surgery frequently meant amputation, evoking the grim image of a bone saw: The old sawbones patched me up.

It appears most often in historical fiction or deliberately old-fashioned speech.

historical

barber-surgeon

Pre-modern medical practitioner

battlefieldCombat engagement area
Civil WarCountrymen fighting countrymen
amputationSurgical limb removal

bloodletting · leeches · gangrene · trepanation · field hospital · army surgeon · frontier doctor · plague doctor · cupping · humors

surgical

scalpel

Precise surgical knife

incisionControlled cut into tissue
amputationSurgical limb removal
operating tableSurgical procedure surface

suture · stitches · cutting · surgery · anesthesia · forceps · clamps · retractor · sterile · gown

slang

doc

Physician or file, shortened

quackFake healer or fowl noise
medicoInformal term for physician
sawyerWood-cutting tradesperson

cutter · croaker · country doctor · horse doctor · butcher · bonesetter · medicine man · witch doctor · leech · charlatan

Categories

job slangcop, doc, medic, cabbie, barista
Old Healershealer, physician, surgeon, apothecary, midwife
old medicinebloodletting, leeches, leech therapy, leeching, cupping
Civil War Slangskedaddle, Johnny Reb, bluebelly, grayback, copperhead
doctorsdoctor, doctors, physician, physicians, MD
compoundscompound word, compound sentence, compound noun, compound interest, compound fracture

Opposites

medical role

sawbonespatient

Able to wait calmly

nonphysician · invalid · layperson · layman · casualty

medical refinement

sawbonesphysician

Licensed medical doctor

surgeon · medical practitioner · attending physician · specialist · microsurgeon

Family

saw, bones, saws

Familiarity: Top 500,000
Profile: Used worldwide · Timeless · Concrete · Everyday, not technical · Rated G