Doxycycline

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A tetracycline-class antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections such as acne, respiratory infections and certain sexually transmitted diseases
2. An antibacterial medication from the tetracycline family prescribed against a range of infections including chlamydia, Lyme disease and rosacea
3. A synthetic broad-spectrum antibiotic that works by blocking bacterial protein synthesis and is commonly given for acne and various infections

Etymology: Doxycycline is a blend, built by chemists from pieces of two older drug names. Its first part comes from "deoxy-", a prefix meaning that an oxygen atom has been removed from the molecule. Its second part comes from "oxytetracycline", an earlier antibiotic in the tetracycline family, which itself took its name from an oxygen-bearing ring structure. Joining the two gave a name that tells a pharmacist, at a glance, both what the molecule is related to and how it differs from that parent compound. The result is a textbook example of how pharmaceutical names are coined. Rather than inventing a fresh string of letters, the name records a structural relationship: a modified version of oxytetracycline with one oxygen removed. Naming drugs this way lets chemists and prescribers see families of related compounds in a single word.