penicillinase

1. 1.

   enzyme produced by certain bacteria that inactivates penicillin and results in resistance to that antibiotic

   Synonymsbeta-lactamase

   Broaderenzyme

Other forms of penicillinase

plural

penicillinases·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about penicillinase

What does penicillinase mean?

penicillinase means "enzyme produced by certain bacteria that inactivates penicillin and results in resistance to that antibiotic".

How many syllables are in penicillinase?

penicillinase has 5 syllables: pe-ni-cil-li-nase. The stress falls on "cil".

What is another word for penicillinase?

Close synonyms include beta-lactamase. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is penicillinase a common word?

penicillinase is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.