adjunct

American  

[aj-uhngkt] / ˈædʒ ʌŋkt /

noun

1. something added to another thing but not essential to it.

   Synonyms:

   supplement, appendix

2. a person associated with lesser status, rank, authority, etc., in some duty or service; assistant.

   Synonyms:

   attaché, aide

3. a person working at an institution, as a college or university, without having full or permanent status.

   My lawyer works two nights a week as an adjunct, teaching business law at the college.

4. Grammar. a modifying form, word, or phrase depending on some other form, word, or phrase, especially an element of clause structure with adverbial function.

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adjective

1. joined or associated, especially in an auxiliary or subordinate relationship.

2. attached or belonging without full or permanent status.

   an adjunct surgeon on the hospital staff.

adjunct British  

/ ˈædʒʌŋkt, əˈdʒʌŋktɪv /

noun

1. something incidental or not essential that is added to something else

2. a person who is subordinate to another

3. grammar

   1. part of a sentence other than the subject or the predicate

   2. (in systemic grammar) part of a sentence other than the subject, predicator, object, or complement; usually a prepositional or adverbial group

   3. part of a sentence that may be omitted without making the sentence ungrammatical; a modifier

4. logic another name for accident

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adjective

1. added or connected in a secondary or subordinate position; auxiliary

Synonym Usage

See addition.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• adjunctive
  adjective
• adjunctly
  adverb

Etymology

Origin of adjunct

1580–90; < Latin adjunctus joined to (past participle of adjungere ), equivalent to ad- ad- + jung- (nasal variant of jug- yoke ¹ ) + -tus past participle suffix

Explanation

Adjunct means something added on, but not part of the whole. An adjunct professor is someone who is hired by a college to teach but isn't a full member of the faculty. This is a word you can figure out by taking it apart. From ad- "to" and -junct "join" (think "junction"), you can see that this is about joining something to another. "During lunch, Tim always sat at the girls' lacrosse-team lunch table, and they joked that he was an adjunct member of the team."

Example Sentences

The college’s Adjunct Faculty Alliance-UAW announced that its colleagues at the USC School of Cinematic Arts will march Wednesday to the provost’s office and deliver a letter of request for their union to be recognized.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 29, 2023

MTU and UniSA Adjunct Associate Professor Ali Al-Naji and his colleagues have reviewed the worldwide advances in computer-aided disease diagnosis, based on tongue colour, in a new paper in AIP Conference Proceedings.

From Science Daily • Oct. 19, 2023

For months the AAUP-AFT, the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union and the AAUP-BHSNJ, the three unions that represent the 9,000 professors, adjuncts, and support staff made their case to anyone who would listen.

From Salon • Apr. 12, 2023

Adjunct professors, who can teach two courses per semester, can earn between about $3,100 and $5,100 for each class, according to the union.

From Washington Post • Mar. 21, 2022

When so regarded, it may possess an Adjunct which is not possessed by any Member of it taken separately.

From Symbolic Logic by Carroll, Lewis