A biopsy is when a doctor takes a small piece of tissue or some cells from the body and looks at them, usually under a microscope, to find out more about a disease. Doctors often do this when they need to know whether a lump is cancer, or what kind of illness is in an organ. As a noun: “She had a biopsy last week.” As a verb: “They biopsied the skin.” It is a hospital word, serious but not rare. Though actually, a biopsy is only the taking and the looking — it is not itself a diagnosis, and it is not surgery to remove a whole organ. People hear the word and jump to cancer; sometimes the result is nothing serious. The piece taken is small on purpose. From French biopsie, built from bi- + -opsy.