endoscope

American  

[en-duh-skohp] / ˈɛn dəˌskoʊp /

noun

Medicine/Medical.

1. a slender, tubular optical instrument used as a viewing system for examining an inner part of the body and, with an attached instrument, for biopsy or surgery.

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endoscope British  

/ ɛnˈdɒskəpɪst, ˌɛndəʊˈskɒpɪk, ˈɛndəʊˌskəʊp /

noun

1. a long slender medical instrument used for examining the interior of hollow organs including the lung, stomach, bladder, and bowel

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endoscope Scientific  

/ ĕn′də-skōp′ /

1. A medical instrument used for visual examination of the interior of a body cavity or a hollow organ such as the colon, bladder, or stomach. It is a rigid or flexible tube fitted with lenses, a fiber-optic light source, and often a probe, forceps, suction device, or other apparatus for examination or retrieval of tissue.

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Other Word Forms

• endoscopic adjective
• endoscopist noun
• endoscopy noun

Etymology

Origin of endoscope

First recorded in 1860–65; endo- + -scope

Example Sentences

It relies on an endoscope, a camera-tipped flexible device that is carefully guided through the large intestine.

From Science Daily • Nov. 21, 2025

Bringing out a bisected piece of a heart, Dr. Shumpei Mori displayed how its inner architecture could be captured on camera, threading a catheter through the organ as a co-worker snaked in an endoscope.

From Los Angeles Times • May 20, 2024

“You can't just take an endoscope down a baleen whale and see what they're doing when they're singing,” says Reidenberg, who was not involved with the new study, published today in Nature.

From National Geographic • Feb. 21, 2024

They used video from an endoscope, a thin, tube-like instrument, to image the phonic lips in harbor porpoises and bottlenosed dolphins in captivity.

From Reuters • Mar. 2, 2023

Never endoscope a foreign body case unprepared, with the idea of taking a preliminary look.

From Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery by Jackson, Chevalier