What does "nutraceutical" mean?

A nutrient or food believed to have curative properties; a food used as a drug.

What is a synonym for "nutraceutical"?

Common synonyms include: bioceutical.

Pronounced //njuːtɹəˈsuːtɪkəl//.

//njuːtɹəˈsuːtɪkəl// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A nutrient or food believed to have curative properties; a food used as a drug.
"The latest nutraceutical nostrum could come from the blueberry."

"The latest nutraceutical nostrum could come from the blueberry."

Blend of nutrient + pharmaceutical, a marketing term coined by Stephen DeFelice in 1989.

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