Circumcision, the practice of cutting away the foreskin, chiefly of males, as observed by the Jews and the Mohammedans, as well as other nations of remote antiquity; regarded by some as a mark of belonging to the tribe, and by others as a sacrifice in propitiation by blood.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Circulation of the Blood * Circumlocution Office