: a small straight thin-bladed knife used especially in surgery
Examples of scalpel in a Sentence
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Meanwhile, lawmakers in both the sledgehammer and the scalpel camps are criticizing the package as not going far enough and going too far, respectively.
—
Rachel Frazin, The Hill, 16 May 2025
Battalions of mercenary soldiers could be used as a scalpel to fulfill foreign policy goals in places like Sudan and Syria, where Russia had an interest in resources like gold or could count on political support from autocratic leaders.
—Nicolas Niarchos, New York Times, 13 May 2025
Instead of a scalpel, LASIK uses a femtosecond laser, which emits powerful pulses of light for only a femtosecond (one quadrillionth of a second).
—Jerome Barthelemy, Harvard Business Review, 13 May 2025
Any candidate for governor in 2026 must embrace this challenge — not with Musk’s sledgehammer, but with a scalpel guided by data and transparency.
—Zac Townsend, The Mercury News, 14 Mar. 2025
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Rachel Frazin, The Hill, 16 May 2025
Battalions of mercenary soldiers could be used as a scalpel to fulfill foreign policy goals in places like Sudan and Syria, where Russia had an interest in resources like gold or could count on political support from autocratic leaders.
—Nicolas Niarchos, New York Times, 13 May 2025
Instead of a scalpel, LASIK uses a femtosecond laser, which emits powerful pulses of light for only a femtosecond (one quadrillionth of a second).
—Jerome Barthelemy, Harvard Business Review, 13 May 2025
Any candidate for governor in 2026 must embrace this challenge — not with Musk’s sledgehammer, but with a scalpel guided by data and transparency.
—Zac Townsend, The Mercury News, 14 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for scalpel
Cite this Entry
“Scalpel.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scalpel. Accessed 5 Jun. 2025.
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scalpel
noun
scal·pel
ˈskal-pəl 
also skal-ˈpel
: a small straight thin-bladed knife used especially in surgery
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