Other forms: transplanted, transplants, transplanting
A transplant is the operation that moves an organ from one body into another. A heart transplant, a transplant list, awaiting a transplant.
The word covers the operation, the organ moved and, as a verb, the moving itself. Rejection is the central problem — the recipient's immune system attacks the new organ — which is why transplant patients take immunosuppressants for life. In gardening, transplanting is moving a plant from one place to another, and that is the older sense. A transplant is also a person who has moved to live somewhere new: a New York transplant.
1nountransplantAn operation moving an organ from one body to another.
“He has been on the transplant list for two years.”
2verbmoveTo move an organ, a plant or a person to a new place.
“The seedlings are transplanted once the frost has gone.”
transplant is a moving from one place to another.
Latin transplantare is trans-, across, plus plantare, to plant. The word belonged to gardeners for four hundred years before surgeons borrowed it, so the heart transplant is named after moving a seedling.
Latin
transplantare
Old French
transplanter
Middle English
transplaunten
English, today
transplant
From Middle English transplaunten, from Old French transplanter, from Latin transplantare, equivalent to trans- + plant.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA