[f. L. type *transfīxiōn-em, n. of action from transfīgĕre, -fīx- to TRANSFIX: cf. L. affīxiōn-, crucifīxiōn-.] The action of transfixing or state of being transfixed.
1609. Bp. W. Barlow, Answ. Nameless Cath., 335. Hee … shal finde both an explicit contradiction, and a double transfixion, like that stroake of Phinees … pearcing with one speech through two at once.
1628. Bp. Hall, Serm. Gal. ii. 20, Wks. 1837, V. 336. Six several times do we find that Christ shed blood; in his Circumcision, in his Agony, in his Crowning, in his Scourging, in his Affixion, in his Transfixion.
1844. Phrenol. Jrnl., Oct., 368. The head must have been embalmed, and must have been so before its transfixion.
b. Surgery. The process of piercing the limb transversely, and cutting from within outward, in amputation. (Cf. F. transfixion, Littré.)
1872. T. Bryant, Pract. Surg., 1037. In cutting the posterior flap by transfixion … the Surgeon should always support it with his left hand.
1890. Billings, Med. Dict., Transfixion, a piercing through, as in cutting a flap from within outward.
attrib. 1883. Daily News, 19 Feb., 4/8. Perhaps [the murderers] thought transfixion knives nothing worse than an improvement on the admittedly inefficient pikeheads of ’48.
