intrathecal
adjective, noun
intrathecal is an adjective meaning “Delivered into the spinal canal (intrathecal space surrounding the spinal cord), e.g. a spinal anesthesia” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled I-N-T-R-A-T-H-E-C-A-L, and it appears about once in every 14 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does intrathecal mean?
adjective
- 1
Delivered into the spinal canal (intrathecal space surrounding the spinal cord), e.g. a spinal anesthesia.
noun
- 1
An intrathecal injection.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of intrathecal
- intrathecals plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is intrathecal?
Intrathecal appears about once in every 14 million words in written English, the 111,684th 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).
How do you abbreviate intrathecal?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of intrathecal: IT.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Intrathecal in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense delivered into the spinal canal:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | intrathécal |
| Spanish | intratecal |
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 intrathecal come from?
From intra- + theca + -al.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).