Aciclovir

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A medication that inhibits the replication of herpes viruses by interfering with viral DNA synthesis
2. An antiviral agent prescribed to treat infections caused by herpes simplex virus and varicella-zoster virus
3. A nucleoside analogue drug that suppresses herpes virus activity by blocking viral DNA polymerase

Etymology: Aciclovir is a modern pharmaceutical coinage, not an ancient word hidden in a classical language. Its name is built from pieces of chemical nomenclature: "acyclo" points to its chemical structure, an acyclic (open-chain) analogue of guanosine, a natural nucleoside, while the ending "-vir" signals that it is an antiviral drug. The "a-" at the front is a negating prefix, so the name reads as "non-cyclic" in its ring-related part, with "cyclo-" carrying the ring sense. The name therefore records a fact about the molecule's shape. Guanosine has a ring in the sugar portion of the molecule, and aciclovir removes that ring, leaving an open chain. Drug names of this kind were built to let chemists and prescribers read a compound's structure and purpose straight from its label, which is why the word looks more like a code than a dictionary entry.

Synonyms: acyclovir