Definition of "vancomycin" []

• An antibiotic, C66H75Cl2N9O24, produced by the actinomycete Amycolaptosis orientalis (formerly Streptomyces orientalis), found in Indonesian and Indian soil, and effective against staphylococci and spirochetes. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "It was called vancomycin, and it was famous in hospitals as a drug of last resort."
• "Five months after her surgery, Stephanie had to spend two hours a day hooked up to this IV, receiving a special antibiotic called vancomycin through a line implanted it in her chest."
• "The patients were stratified according to the type of antibiotics used in association with gentamycin, namely vancomycin, amoxicillin, or other antibiotics (including patients treated with oxacillin and those who alternatively received amoxicillin and vancomycin)."