Cephalosporin
//kɛfələʊˈspɔəɹɪn// noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Any of a class of natural and synthetic antibiotics developed from Acremonium fungi, having a cepham structure.
"Another important group of antibiotics, the cephalosporins, a class that includes more than twenty-five different drugs, are chemically distinct from the penicillins but act in the same way as cell wall inhibitors, as do vancomycin and bacitracin."
- 2 one of several broad spectrum antibiotic substances obtained from fungi and related to penicillin (trade names Mefoxin); addition of side chains has produced semisynthetic antibiotics with greater antibacterial activity wordnet
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Another important group of antibiotics, the cephalosporins, a class that includes more than twenty-five different drugs, are chemically distinct from the penicillins but act in the same way as cell wall inhibitors, as do vancomycin and bacitracin."
Etymology
From translingual Cephalosporium (now Acremonium), a genus of fungi, + -in.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.