Ne*cro"sis (?), n. [NL., fr. gr. , fr. to make dead, to mortify, a dead body.]
1. med.
Mortification or gangrene of bone, or the death of a bone or portion of a bone in mass, as opposed to its death by molecular disintegration. See Caries.
<-- now used differently : modern def = "pathologic death of part of a tissue due to irreversible damage" i.e. not just bone. Contrast to necrobiosis, which is a normal death of cels in a tissue -->
2. Bot.
A disease of trees, in which the branches gradually dry up from the bark to the center.
© Webster 1913.