What does "tamoxifen" mean?

A nonsteroidal estrogen antagonist used in the treatment of postmenopausal breast cancer and infertility in women.

What is a synonym for "tamoxifen"?

Common synonyms include: estrogen antagonist, estrogen antagonist.

Pronounced //təˈmɒk.sɪ.fɛn//.

//təˈmɒk.sɪ.fɛn// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A nonsteroidal estrogen antagonist used in the treatment of postmenopausal breast cancer and infertility in women. countable, uncountable
"Treatment with tamoxifen after surgery reduced cancer relapse rates by nearly 50 percent."
2
an antagonist for estrogen that is used in the treatment of breast cancer wordnet

"Treatment with tamoxifen after surgery reduced cancer relapse rates by nearly 50 percent."

From t(rans)- + am(ine) + oxy- + phen(yl).

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