# meatball surgery

> English word · Noun

## Definitions
1. Surgery performed rapidly in a military field hospital to stabilize the patient as quickly as possible.
2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see meatball, surgery.

## Etymology
Coined or popularised by Richard Hooker in the novel MASH (1968).

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/meatball-surgery