word-forming element meaning "act or process of forming," also "plastic surgery" applied to a specific part, from Greek -plastia, from plastos "molded, formed," verbal adjective from plassein "to mold" (see plasma).
Entries linking to -plasty
plasma n.
1712, "form, shape" (a sense now obsolete), a more classical form of earlier plasm; from Late Latin plasma, from Greek plasma "something molded or created," hence "image, figure; counterfeit, forgery; formed style, affectation," from plassein "to mold," originally "to spread thin," from PIE *plath-yein, from root *pele- (2) "flat; to spread."
Sense of "the liquid part of blood, etc., as distinguished from the corpuscles" is from 1845. In physics, the sense of "ionized gas" is by 1928.
angioplasty n.
procedure used to open blocked arteries, by 1976, from angio- + -plasty.