sulfa

[suhl-fuh]

adjective

1. related chemically to sulfanilamide.

2. pertaining to, consisting of, or involving a sulfa drug or drugs.

noun

1. sulfa drug.

Word History and Origins

Origin of sulfa¹

First recorded in 1935–40; short for sulfanilamide

Example Sentences

In Buffalo, New York, a different AI tool misheard Dr. Lauren Bruckner when she told a teenage cancer patient it was a good thing she didn’t have an allergy to sulfa drugs.

Read more on Seattle Times

“Well, FYI, I’m allergic to sulfa, so if there’s sulfa in that gel I might explode. But don’t be afraid. If you were, that is.”

Read more on Literature

The Times hailed the drug’s “humanitarian and social significance,” and Time magazine compared Thorazine to the “germ-killing sulfas,” groundbreaking drugs developed in the 1930s and 1940s to fight off bacterial infections.

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Through trial and error, the team had discovered that penicillin was much more effective and safer in fighting bacteria in animals than sulfa drugs, which were the treatment for infections at the time.

Read more on Washington Post

This is also true of multiple oral antibiotics in the class known as sulfa drugs.

Read more on Scientific American