necrosis Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun the localized death of living cells (as from infection or the interruption of blood supply)
    gangrene; mortification; sphacelus.

WordNet

Ne*cro"sis noun
Etymology
NL., fr. gr. , fr. to make dead, to mortify, a dead body.
Definitions
  1. (med.) Mortification or gangrene of bone, or the death of a bone or portion of a bone in mass, as opposed to its death by molecular disintegration. See Caries. now used differently : modern def = "pathologic death of part of a tissue due to irreversible damage" i.e. not just bone. Contrast to necrobiosis, which is a normal death of cels in a tissue
  2. (Bot.) A disease of trees, in which the branches gradually dry up from the bark to the center.

Webster 1913