Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
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No pronunciation record was provided for this word.
adj
Of or relating to the constriction of blood vessels, which usually causes a rise in blood pressure.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: not-comparable
Topics: medicine, sciences
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
An agent that causes such constriction; especially, a medication that tends to increase blood pressure.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Topics: medicine, sciences
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: pressor, presser, vasoconstrictor
Antonyms: vasodepressor, vasodilator
noun
any agent that produces vasoconstriction and a rise in blood pressure (usually understood as increased arterial pressure)
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: vasoconstrictor, vasoconstrictive, pressor
History
To international scientific vocabulary from New Latin as a classical compound: vaso- + press + -or; the word is attested in its adjectival sense in a 1913 article of the Journal of the American Medical Association (1913;60[1]:47-48). The cognate word vasopressin seems to have arisen circa 1927; it is clearly inspired by its earlier cognate (surface analysis, vaso- + press + -in), and there are indications that it was coined in a certain pharmaceutical company's research laboratory, possibly with the plan to use it as the trade name for a preparation, but it became the common noun for the endogenous hormone (that is, antidiuretic hormone) immediately in the medical literature, and that company then used another name as its trade name. Compare also the morphologic parallels of angiotensin.
