What does "colistin" mean?

A polymixin antibiotic effective against a range of gram-negative bacteria, sometimes considered a last-resort antibiotic.

What is a synonym for "colistin"?

Common synonyms include: colimycin, colistimethate, mcr 1, polymyxin e, polymyxin e.

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A polymixin antibiotic effective against a range of gram-negative bacteria, sometimes considered a last-resort antibiotic. uncountable, usually
"It's the first time this colistin-resistant strain has been found in a person in the United States."

"The antibiotic Colistin is known as a medicine of "last resort," used to save people's lives when all other drugs have failed."

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.