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chemotherapy

noun

Simple meaning

Chemical treatment to kill or halt the replication and/or spread of cancerous cells in a patient.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

keemohthehruhpee

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

kimoʊˈθɛɹəpi

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. oncologymost common usage

    Chemical treatment to kill or halt the replication and/or spread of cancerous cells in a patient.

  2. medicine

    Any chemical treatment intended to be therapeutic with respect to a disease state.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

This meaning: (oncology, most common usage) chemical treatment to kill or halt the replication and/or spread of cancerous cells in a patient.

Used this way, chemotherapy is a specialist word with a clearly unfavourable pull. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.

Emotional tone
Negative
Formality
Specialist/technical
Intensity
Moderate
How common
Specialized
Connotation
Serious and weighty
Usage feel
Clinical and detached

Where it naturally appears

  • Medicine/healthcare
  • Science
  • Technical/specialist writing

Usage note

In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use chemotherapy

  • “The doctor discussed the option of chemotherapy as a treatment for cancer.”

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

induction chemotherapycancer chemotherapycombination chemotherapyadjuvant chemotherapydose chemotherapyintensive chemotherapychemotherapy treatmentchemotherapy regimens

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Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.