Mycin

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A class of antibiotics derived from various strains of bacteria that specifically target and inhibit the growth of harmful microorganisms
2. Often used in medical treatments to combat infections caused by bacteria
3. Commonly employed in therapeutic applications for their antibacterial properties in various forms

Etymology: The suffix "-mycin" is a modern coinage, not a word with a long history in English. It comes from the Greek "mykes," meaning "fungus," which is the root behind words like "mycology," the study of fungi. The suffix became a naming convention for antibiotics because the first widely used drugs of this kind were isolated from fungi and from soil microbes, notably the streptomycin family, which was named after the Streptomyces bacteria that produce it. Because the ending was attached to each new antibiotic as it was discovered, "-mycin" now marks a whole class of drugs. Chemists and pharmacists used it to signal that a compound came from a microbe and killed bacteria, so names such as erythromycin and tetracycline-era relatives follow the same pattern. The ending therefore records a biological origin, even though many of the drugs are now made synthetically.

Synonyms: antibiotic, streptomycin, erythromycin, tetracycline, penicillin