noun

• (medicine, American spelling, Canadian spelling) 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.
• (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.
• (loosely, proscribed, sometimes Philippines) Synonym of anesthetic