Etymology Edit
In the term plastic surgery, the adjective plastic implies sculpting or reshaping, which is derived from the Greek πλαστική (τέχνη), plastikē (tekhnē), “the art of modelling” of malleable flesh.[1] This meaning in English is attested as early as 1598.[2] The surgical definition of "plastic" first appeared in 1839, preceding the modern "engineering material made from petroleum" sense of plastic (coined by Leo Baekeland in 1909) by seventy years.[3]