Word.ws English Dictionary

ribavirin

/ˌɹaɪ.bəˈvaɪ.ɹɪn/

ribavirin noun: a synthetic analog of guanosine with chemical formula C₈H₁₂N₄O₅ that inhibits viral nucleic acid synthesis and is used as a broad-spectrum antiviral drug especially in the treatment of respiratory syncytial virus infection and chronic hepatitis C.

ribavirin: a synthetic analog of guanosine with chemical formula C₈H₁₂N₄O₅ that inhibits viral nucleic acid...
Image: catclock, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

ribavirin (countable and uncountable, plural ribavirins)

  1. A synthetic analog of guanosine with chemical formula C₈H₁₂N₄O₅ that inhibits viral nucleic acid synthesis and is used as a broad-spectrum antiviral drug especially in the treatment of respiratory syncytial virus infection and chronic hepatitis C.
    • Due to the paucity of approved treatments, it should come as no surprise that thousands of PWAs/PWARCs have found it necessary to try some of the more widely available alternative treatments. These include DNCB (a compound applied topically that has been used for Kaposi's sarcoma), ribavirin (an...1988 August 13, Miranda Kolbe, “A PWA Movement of Guerrilla Clinics”, in Gay Community News, volume 16, number 5, page 8

Forms of ribavirin

pluralribavirins

Origin of ribavirin

From rib(oside) + -a- + -vir- (“antiviral”) + -in.

Words formed from ribavirin

Questions about ribavirin

What does ribavirin mean?
Ribavirin means a synthetic analog of guanosine with chemical formula C₈H₁₂N₄O₅ that inhibits viral nucleic acid synthesis and is used as a broad-spectrum antiviral drug especially in the treatment of respiratory syncytial virus infection and chronic hepatitis C.
What part of speech is ribavirin?
Ribavirin is a noun.
How do you pronounce ribavirin?
Ribavirin is pronounced /ˌɹaɪ.bəˈvaɪ.ɹɪn/.
What is the plural of ribavirin?
The plural of ribavirin is ribavirins.

Words near ribavirin in the dictionary

  1. ribauds
  2. ribauld
  3. ribauldequin
  4. ribauldequins
  5. ribaulds
  6. ribavirin
  7. ribavirins
  8. ribband
  9. ribbandry
  10. ribbands
  11. ribbe

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ribavirin (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-ribavirin.ogg.

Cite this entry: “ribavirin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ribavirin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.