chemo
Formschemos, chemoing, chemoed
- 1Clipping of chemotherapy.
He lost most of his appetite during chemo and dropped a lot of weight.
Her oncologist recommended chemo alongside radiation for the best outcome.
Note
A clipping that keeps only the first element but carries both meanings of the full word: any chemical treatment of disease, and the narrower treatment aimed at cancer cells. It usually takes no article (during chemo, start chemo), though it can also be counted, with the plural chemos. The same short form was turned into a verb of its own.
- 2To treat a patient with chemotherapy drugs.
The oncologists chose to chemo the tumor aggressively before attempting removal.
They chemoed the patient through the summer, then reassessed his response to the drugs.
Note
The clipped noun turned into a verb, with regular endings and no apostrophe: chemoed, chemoing, chemos. Its object can be the patient or the disease itself. Charley Fish's Insuring Death (2015) has "chemoed the tumor in the leg down by 92 percent," where down measures how far it shrank. It stays informal. In careful writing, treat with chemotherapy is the safer choice.
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