gramicidin

1 8.4

A medicine that kills bacteria on the skin to treat an infection

noun
/ˌɡræmɪˈsaɪdɪn/

Specialized

: gramicidina

The doctor prescribed gramicidin to help clear up the skin infection.

Examples

Gramicidin is often used to treat local infections caused by gramicidin positive bacteria.
May be combined with neomycin, gramicidin, and triamcinolone acetonide.

Academic text (2005)
Due to its effectiveness, gramicidin has become a common antiseptic for gramicidin positive bacterial infections.

Surface Forms

gramicidin singular

gramicidins plural

Morphology

gramicidin = Gram (opaque) = gram + icidin

A technical pharmaceutical formation: the element 'icidin' is not a productive English morpheme and the relation to 'Gram' (the bacteriological term) is specialized, so learners cannot infer meaning from the parts.

Etymology

Gramicidin comes from the name of the soil bacterium that made it and the ending -cidin, which means 'killer' and is the same idea you see in pesticide. So, gramicidin is named for the microbe that produced it and for its ability to kill bacteria, which fits its use as an antibiotic.