Necrosis

The phrase "Visible Necrosis" appears on warnings on quantities of certain hazardous materials: "Visible Necrosis of the skin in x seconds", for example, meaning that if you get some of it on you, your skin will be molecularily dead in x seconds.

Ne*cro"sis (?), n. [NL., fr. gr. , fr. to make dead, to mortify, a dead body.]

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.