adjuvant

[ aj-uh-vuhnt ]
See synonyms for: adjuvantadjuvants on Thesaurus.com

adjective
  1. serving to help or assist; auxiliary: You'll be serving in an adjuvant capacity, on call if we need you.

  2. Medicine/Medical. utilizing drugs, radiation therapy, or other means of supplemental treatment following cancer surgery or other primary cancer treatment: The cancer was caught at such an early stage that adjuvant measures were determined to be unnecessary.: Compare neoadjuvant.

noun
  1. a person or thing that aids or helps: a team of adjuvants.

  2. Medicine/Medical, Pharmacology. anything that aids in the treatment of disease, management of pain, etc., especially a substance added to a medication to aid the effect of the main ingredient:For some in acute pain, caffeine is an effective analgesic adjuvant.

  1. Immunology. a substance admixed with an immunogen in order to elicit a more marked immune response: Aluminum salts have been used as adjuvants in vaccines for many decades.

Origin of adjuvant

1
First recorded in 1570–80; from Latin adjuvant- (stem of adjuvāns, adjective use of present participle of adjuvāre ), equivalent to prefix ad- + juv- (stem of juvāre “to help”) + -ant; cf. ad-, aid, -ant

Words Nearby adjuvant

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How to use adjuvant in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for adjuvant

adjuvant

/ (ˈædʒəvənt) /


adjective
  1. aiding or assisting

noun
  1. something that aids or assists; auxiliary

  2. med a drug or other substance that enhances the activity of another

  1. immunol a substance that enhances the immune response stimulated by an antigen when injected with the antigen

Origin of adjuvant

1
C17: from Latin adjuvāns, present participle of adjuvāre, from juvāre to help

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012