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anthelmintic

an·thel·min·tic/ænt.hɛlˈmɪntɪk/adjective, noun

anthelmintic is an adjective meaning “Destructive to parasitic worms” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled A-N-T-H-E-L-M-I-N-T-I-C and has 4 syllables (an·thel·min·tic), and it appears about once in every 19 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does anthelmintic mean?

adjective

  1. 1

    Destructive to parasitic worms.

    Research is progressing well on finding native plants with anthelmintic properties.

noun

  1. 1

    A drug for the treatment of worm infestation, either by killing the worms or by causing them to be expelled from the body.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce anthelmintic?

  • UK /ænθɛlˈmɪntɪk/
  • US /ænt.hɛlˈmɪntɪk/
  • US /ænθɛlˈmɪntɪk/

Anthelmintic has 4 syllables, split an·thel·min·tic in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-anthelmintic.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of anthelmintic

  • more anthelmintic comparative
  • most anthelmintic superlative
  • anthelminthic
  • antihelminthic
  • antihelmintic
  • anthelmintics plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is anthelmintic?

Anthelmintic appears about once in every 19 million words in written English, the 133,440th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Anthelmintic in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchanthelmintique (destructive to parasitic intestinal worms), vermifuge (drug that causes the expulsion or death of…)
Germananthelminthisch, entwurmend (destructive to parasitic intestinal worms), Entwurmungsmittel, Wurmmittel, Anthelmintikum (drug that causes the expulsion or death of…)
Portugueseanti-helmíntico (destructive to parasitic intestinal worms)
Spanishantihelmíntico (destructive to parasitic intestinal worms)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does anthelmintic come from?

From ant- + helminth + -ic; for some speakers, the prefix's t- and helminth's initial h- have become /θ/ while the final th of helminth has become t by dissimilation.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).