fentanyl

IPA/ˈfentənl/
IPA/ˈfentənl/

fentanyl — noun

1. a very strong opioid medicine given to patients in serious pain, for example aft

1.nounC1
Definition

a very strong opioid medicine given to patients in serious pain, for example after surgery or during cancer treatment, often through a skin patch or an injection.

Example

Doctors gave Takeshi fentanyl through a skin patch after his back operation.

fentanyl + skin patch (delivery method)

The hospice nurse adjusted the fentanyl dose to keep Eliska comfortable.

adjust + fentanyl dose (clinical collocation)

Common collocations
  • fentanyl patch
  • fentanyl overdose
  • synthetic fentanyl
  • illicit fentanyl
  • fentanyl-laced
Synonyms
  • morphine

    older opioid painkiller; weaker than fentanyl per dose but used for similar clinical purposes.

  • oxycodone

    another prescription opioid; usually taken orally, while fentanyl is typically given by patch or injection.

Usage Note

Uncountable in clinical contexts ('a dose of fentanyl'); often modified by 'illegal' or 'illicit' when discussing the street-drug market.

Common Mistakes

I bought a fentanyl from the pharmacy.
I picked up the fentanyl patch from the pharmacy.
fentanyl is uncountable; use a unit word like 'patch', 'dose', or 'tablet'.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

All four are opioids that act on the same brain receptors, but they differ sharply in strength, source, and how doctors or users encounter them. Morphine is the classic plant-derived painkiller used in hospitals for over a century; oxycodone is a semi-synthetic tablet commonly prescribed for moderate-to-severe pain at home. Fentanyl is fully synthetic and roughly 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine, so doctors give it in tiny amounts through patches or injections for cancer pain and surgery. Heroin is illegal worldwide and made from morphine. In recent years fentanyl has flooded the illegal drug supply, often mixed secretly into heroin or counterfeit pills, which makes overdose much more likely than with morphine or oxycodone alone.

fentanyl ↗morphine ↗oxycodoneheroin ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

  • fentanyl patch
  • fentanyl overdose
  • fentanyl crisis
  • fentanyl dose
  • fentanyl analog

Phrases

  • laced with fentanyl
  • contaminated with fentanyl
  • die from a fentanyl overdose

Prepositions

  • fentanyl in [a substance]
  • fentanyl through [a route]

Etymology

Modern Latin (chemical nomenclature)English

Coined in 1960 by the Belgian chemist Paul Janssen, who synthesised the drug in his laboratory. The name combines 'fent-' (from the chemical name phenethyl) with the suffix '-anyl', which marks many synthetic opioid compounds in pharmacology.