drug cocktail
2
4.1
- noun
- /drʌg ˈkɒk.teɪl/
- Specialized
:
cóctel de drogas
- Rather, they are among a growing list of sudden deaths among military personnel, which many believe is due to sudden cardiac arrest brought on by the drug cocktails being prescribed.
- a three-drug cocktail
Examples
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What we've managed to do is to create a new cutting-edge drug cocktail, along with surgery, to teach the malignant cells to switch off.
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It is a groundbreaking drug cocktail combined with surgery.
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Name a drug cocktail and I've tried it.
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This is a result of these highly effective drug cocktails, selling at full retail for $24,000 annually.
Blog text (21) -
For now, the most effective medical intervention for prolonging HIV patients' lives is the complex "drug cocktail" of anti-retroviral drugs.
Academic text (2002) -
Back in the late '80s when they were getting into drug cocktails for HIV... some doctor that had been bitten mixed one that slowed the virus.
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Although highly effective AIDS drugs have been discovered in the past decade (often administered as a drug cocktail called HAART, or highly active antiretroviral therapy), their cost has made widespread availability and use unlikely and has provoked a vitriolic debate over who should pay for them.
Academic text (2005) -
The three-drug cocktail used differs from the two-drug process specified by state statute; there is no requirement that the executioner have experience with intravenous procedures; nor is there an experience or medical training requirement for the warden who determines whether the inmate is unconscious.
Blog text (24) -
Patients with HIV often rely on a drug cocktail of antiretroviral medications to manage their health.
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The latest research shows that a specific drug cocktail can significantly improve outcomes for AIDS patients.
Synonyms
1
4.7
A combination of medicines doctors use to treat HIV infection
A treatment for HIV that uses several medicines to lower the amount of virus in the body
A medicine with set amounts of two or more active ingredients in one pill
How Complex
- Specialized
2
4.1
- Specialized
1
5.1
- Specialized
- Specialized
55
3.5
- Specialized
1
6.7
Surface Forms
Morphology
drug + cocktail
The meaning is directly derivable from combining 'drug' (a medicinal chemical) with 'cocktail' (commonly understood as a mixture, originally of drinks but extended to any blended set). This compositional pattern (noun + noun where the second denotes a mixture) is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both words would readily infer 'a combination of different drugs'.
Etymology
Drug cocktail comes from the image of a cocktail, a drink made by mixing different ingredients. Doctors call a mix of drugs a drug cocktail because, like a drink, the medicines are combined to work together as one 'treatment'.