local anesthetic

• local anaesthetic

local anesthetic (countable and uncountable, plural local anesthetics)

1. (medicine) An anesthetic (anesthetic substance) that causes loss of sensation only to the area to which it is applied.
   • 1929, Ernest Hemingway, chapter 15, in A Farewell to Arms:

     He used a local anaesthetic called something or other "snow," which froze the tissue and avoided pain until the probe, the scalpel or the forceps got below the frozen portion.

• general anesthetic