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

Related Words

See addition.

Other Word 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

Outside the courtroom, he lectures as an adjunct in the law school at USC and volunteers in a mock trial program for middle and high school students.

From Los Angeles Times • May 1, 2026

Army veteran who served four tours in Iraq and later on a mission in Afghanistan, a small business owner, an adjunct college professor and an electrical engineer, according to his campaign website.

From Los Angeles Times • May 1, 2026

I’d worked as a server, an office clerk, an adjunct professor and a retail worker putting myself through school.

From Salon • Apr. 19, 2026

Mr. Cochrane is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 31, 2026

Despite his first, the study of English literature seemed in retrospect an absorbing parlor game, and reading books and having opinions about them, the desirable adjunct to a civilized existence.

From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan