intravenous
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
A dose of medicine administered from a drip, down through a hollow needle inserted into a patient's vein.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihntruhveenuhsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪntɹəˈvinəs
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.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
medicine
A dose of medicine administered from a drip, down through a hollow needle inserted into a patient's vein.
adjective
Inside the veins.
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.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A dose of medicine administered from a drip, down through a hollow needle inserted into a patient's vein.
Used this way, intravenous is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
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.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Other combinations
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Administration of nutrients through a vein.
An injection into a vein.
X-ray picture of the kidneys and ureters after injection of a radiopaque dye.
Performing pyelography with intravenous injection of a contrast medium.
Slow continuous drip introducing solutions intravenously (a drop at a time).
An anesthetic that produces anesthesia when injected into the circulatory system.
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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.