Adjunct

How to spell adjunct

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce adjunct

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does adjunct mean?

1. nounA thing added or attached to something else in a supporting or secondary role.
2. adjectiveAttached to a position or institution in a subordinate or part-time capacity, especially in academia.

Adjunct in a sentence

• noun

  The new software is a useful adjunct to the existing accounting system.

• adjective

  She teaches two evening courses as an adjunct lecturer at the college.

• noun

  Physiotherapy serves as a valuable adjunct to the medication.

• adjective

  The hospital appointed him to an adjunct faculty position.

Where does adjunct come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin adjunctus, the past participle of adjungere, meaning 'to join to' or 'to fasten onto'. That verb was built from the prefix ad-, meaning 'to' or 'toward', and jungere, meaning 'to join' or 'to yoke together'. English took it on in the late 1500s, first as a grammatical and logical term for something attached to a main element, then more broadly for any helper, addition, or subordinate part. The same jungere root still binds together a family of everyday words such as 'junction', 'conjunction', and 'join', all carrying the idea of things brought together. Knowing that the spelling preserves the buried Latin junct, the joined part, helps explain the awkward d-j sequence and the -nct cluster that trip people up.

How the word is built

• ad- (to, toward)
• junct (joined, from Latin jungere: to join)