intercurrent

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin intercurrens, equivalent to inter- +‎ current.

Adjective

intercurrent (not comparable)

1. Running between or among; intervening.
   • 1659 December 30 (date written), Robert Boyle, New Experiments Physico-Mechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air, and Its Effects, (Made, for the Most Part, in a New Pneumatical Engine) […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] H[enry] Hall, printer to the University, for Tho[mas] Robinson, published 1660, →OCLC:

     Intercurrent Ethereal Substance

   • 1661, John Fell, The Life of The most Learned, Reverend and Pious Dr H. Hammond:

     Nor did he onely stand and keep at bay this multiply'd contest; but (as if this had not been task enough) besides the intercurrent offices of life, his reception of Visits, answering of Letters, his constant Preaching and Catechising, he found leisure to write his Tract of Fundamentals, his Paraenesis, his Review of the Annotations

2. (medicine, of a disease or condition) Simultaneous; occurring at the same time as, or during the period of, another condition.
   • 1848, Robley Dunglison, The practice of medicine: a treatise on special pathology and therapeutics:

     In intercurrent pneumonia, or such as occurs in the course of another disease, the absence of the characteristic expectoration, according to M. Andral, is noticed.

3. (medicine, of a disease or condition) Not belonging to any particular season.

Derived terms

• intercurrently

Translations

Running between or among

• Bulgarian: междинен (bg) (meždinen), промеждутъчен (bg) (promeždutǎčen)

See also

• comorbid

Noun

intercurrent (plural intercurrents)

1. Something intervening.
   • 1913, Havelock Ellis, Love and Pain:

     As fatigue increases, the perception of the intercurrent excitation is retarded; an odor is perceived as exciting before it is perceived as a differentiated sensation

Latin

Verb

intercurrent

1. third-person plural future active indicative of intercurrō