From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishantibiotican‧ti‧bi‧ot‧ic /ˌæntɪbaɪˈɒtɪk◂ $ -ˈɑː-/ ●○○ noun [countable usually plural] MHa drug that is used to kill bacteria and cure infections
Examples from the Corpus
antibiotic• Treat the wasps with an antibiotic and, lo and behold, two genders reappear among the offspring.• Importantly, 27 patients carried two or more strains with different antibiotic resistances.• But the decision to give antibiotics to Yeltsin may have been precautionary and not indicative of his condition.• Thirteen strains were resistant to three or more antibiotics.• Moreover, the problem of antibiotic resistance is global.• Fire blight is treated with a streptomycin antibiotic during bloom.• They stated that basic equipment and medicines were in short supply and that antibiotics and analgesics were particularly scarce.• A second explanation is that antibiotic production is rooted in the plant material that is the food source.Origin antibiotic (1800-1900) anti- + biotic “of life” ((19-21 centuries)) (from Latin bioticus, from Greek, from bios “life”)