adjuvant

[ aj-uh-vuhnt ]

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: Compare neoadjuvant.

   The cancer was caught at such an early stage that adjuvant measures were determined to be unnecessary.

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.

3. 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.

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of adjuvant¹

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; ad- ( def ), aid, -ant

Word History and Origins

Origin of adjuvant¹

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

Example Sentences

It’s the princess’ first official engagement since she concluded adjuvant chemotherapy for an undisclosed form of cancer.

From Los Angeles Times

Neither the palace nor the princess has said what stage of cancer she was diagnosed with, only that it was discovered after she had “major abdominal surgery” in January and that she was being treated with preventive chemotherapy, a secondary treatment that in the U.S. is known as adjuvant chemotherapy.

From Los Angeles Times

"During the pandemic, public health officers were really worried about QS-21 adjuvant availability because that only comes from one tree," said Jay Keasling, UC Berkeley professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and senior faculty scientist at Berkeley Lab.

From Science Daily

"From a world health perspective, there's a lot of need for an alternative source of this adjuvant."

From Science Daily

"The production of the potent vaccine adjuvant QS-21 in yeast highlights the power of synthetic biology to address both major environmental, as well as human, health challenges," said former UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow Yuzhong Liu, first author of the paper and now an assistant professor at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California.

From Science Daily

Related Words

• ancillary
• supplementary