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chemotherapy

nounattested in dialogue

  • //ˌkiːməʊˈθɛɹəpi//

Any chemical treatment intended to be therapeutic with respect to a disease state.

noun

  1. 1

    Any chemical treatment intended to be therapeutic with respect to a disease state.

  2. 2

    chemical treatment to kill or halt the replication and/or spread of cancerous cells in a patient.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰew- Proto-Indo-European *-mn̥ Proto-Hellenic *-mə Ancient Greek -μᾰ (-mă) Ancient Greek χῠ́μᾰ (khŭ́mă) Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-i-eh₂ Proto-Hellenic *-íā Ancient Greek -ία (-ía) Ancient Greek χυμείᾱ (khumeíā)bor. Arabic الْكِيمِيَاء (al-kīmiyāʔ)bor. Medieval Latin alchēmia ▲ Ancient Greek χυμείᾱ (khumeíā)influ. New Latin chēmīader. English chemo- Proto-Indo-European *treb-der.? Ancient Greek θερᾰ́πων (therắpōn) Pre-Greekder.? Ancient Greek -εύς (-eús) Ancient Greek -εύω (-eúō) Ancient Greek θεραπεύω (therapeúō) ▲ Ancient Greek -ία (-ía) Ancient Greek θεραπεία (therapeía)bor. New Latin therapīabor. English therapy English chemotherapy From chemo- + therapy.

Forms

plural
chemotherapies
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Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).