Meaning & use
fentanyl
Last updated
Meanings
noununcountablemedicalchemistry
A very strong synthetic drug used in medicine to relieve severe pain, and also sold illegally as a dangerous street drug.
Grammar: No plural and no article in general use: 'a dose of fentanyl', not 'a fentanyl'.
Patterns
- a dose of fentanyl
- fentanyl overdose
- be treated with fentanyl
- traces of fentanyl
Doctors may give fentanyl to patients recovering from major surgery.
Health officials warned that illegally made fentanyl is often mixed into other drugs.
The label lists fentanyl as the active ingredient in the patch.
nouncountablemedical
A dose or patch of this drug given as a medicine.
Grammar: Countable only when it means one measured dose or patch: 'two fentanyls' is rare and mainly clinical.
Patterns
- prescribe a fentanyl
- apply a fentanyl
The nurse applied a fentanyl and checked the patient an hour later.
He was prescribed a low-dose fentanyl for back pain.
Common combinations
- fentanyl overdose
- Paramedics treated three suspected fentanyl overdoses on the same night.
- a dose of fentanyl
- Even a tiny dose of fentanyl can be dangerous for someone who has never taken it.
- fentanyl patch
- The fentanyl patch releases the drug slowly through the skin.
- fentanyl poisoning
- Officials reported a rise in fentanyl poisoning among teenagers.
- illicit fentanyl
- Customs officers seized a large shipment of illicit fentanyl at the border.
Synonyms and how they differ
- opioid
- A wider group of painkilling drugs; fentanyl is one kind of opioid, so the words are not interchangeable.
- morphine
- Another strong painkiller, but a different drug, weaker than fentanyl in equal doses.
- painkiller
- A general everyday word for any pain-relieving medicine; it says nothing about strength or type.
Word family
Commonly confused: fentanyl or fentanol?
fentanyl vs fentanol
Not a real drug name; it is probably a mishearing of fentanyl. Use the spelling with '-yl'.
Practice
Which sentence uses fentanyl correctly?
Choose one answer.
Fentanyl is a strong painkiller given for severe pain, so sentence 2 fits. It is not a headache remedy, not sold in supermarkets, and not a vitamin.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “fentanyl”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.