adjunct

American  

[aj-uhngkt] / ˈædʒ ʌŋkt /

noun

• adjuncts
  plural

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 /

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

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• adjuncts
  plural

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

See Examples For:

adjunct adjuncts

Wyle: We have a great organization that’s an adjunct to the Norman Lear Foundation called Hollywood Health.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026

Mr. Segram is an adjunct assistant professor of finance at the New York University Stern School of Business.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026

Elliott Hazen, an adjunct professor in the ecology and evolutionary biology department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, says that hasn't happened in a decade.

From Barron's ● Jul. 27, 2026

Still, he had to give up his job as an adjunct professor to make time for his caregiving responsibilities.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 23, 2026

They can also show up as an adjunct to a verb phrase or clause, as in She died young And They showed up drunk.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

Unions representing graduate workers, adjuncts and non-tenure-track instructors have organized in recent years at several campuses, including New York University, Columbia and Harvard.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2026

"Healthy dietary and lifestyle practices should remain the foundation for obesity treatment and management, with medications such as GLP-1 receptor agonists used as adjuncts."

From Science Daily ● Jan. 28, 2026

Administrators rely too heavily on student reviews when deciding whether to retain adjuncts, assistant professors and even associates.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 23, 2025

“Some universities will pay adjuncts about $5,000 a semester per class.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 16, 2024

I rang for the tea, and the waiter, reappearing with his magic clue, brought in by degrees some fifty adjuncts to that refreshment, but of tea not a glimpse.

From "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens