adjunct

From Latin adiunctus, perfect passive participle of adiungō (“join to”), from ad + iungō (“join”). Doublet of adjoint.

• IPA^(key): /ˈæd͡ʒ.ʌŋkt/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ædʒʌŋkt
• Hyphenation: ad‧junct

adjunct (plural adjuncts)

1. An appendage; something attached to something else in a subordinate capacity.

   Synonyms: addition, supplement; see also Thesaurus:adjunct

   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act I, scene ii:

     Lie here ye weedes that I diſdaine to weare,
     This compleat armor, and this curtle-axe / Are adiuncts more beſeeming Tamburlaine.

   • c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii], page 135:

     Learning is but an adiunct to our ſelfe,
     And where we are, our Learning likewiſe is.

2. A person associated with another, usually in a subordinate position; a colleague.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:associate, Thesaurus:attendant

   • c. 1635 (date written), Henry Wotton, “Of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex; and George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham: Some Observations by Way of Parallel in the Time of Their Estates of Favour”, in Reliquiæ Wottonianæ. Or, A Collection of Lives, Letters, Poems; […], London: […] Thomas Maxey, for R[ichard] Marriot, G[abriel] Bedel, and T[imothy] Garthwait, published 1651, →OCLC, page 5:

     [H]e made him the aſſociate of his Heir apparant, together vvith the nevv Lord Cottington (as an adjunct of ſingular experience and truſt) in forraine travailes, and in a buſineſſe of Love, and of no equall hazzard […]

3. (brewing) An unmalted grain or grain product that supplements the main mash ingredient.
4. (dated, metaphysics) A quality or property of the body or mind, whether natural or acquired, such as colour in the body or judgement in the mind.
5. (music) A key or scale closely related to another as principal; a relative or attendant key.
6. (grammar) A dispensable phrase in a clause or sentence that modifies its meaning.

   Coordinate terms: attribute, predicate

   noun adjunct

   • 1981 April 4, Signe A. Dayhoff, “Sexist Language: You Become Your Label”, in Gay Community News, page 9:

     When a female enters the profession, she is generally not referred to as doctor but as a lady doctor or woman doctor. The use of "feminizing" adjuncts designates a deviation from the norm, doctor, and does not carry the weight of the term unmodified.

7. (syntax, X-bar theory) A constituent which is both the daughter and the sister of an X-bar.
   • 1988, Andrew Radford, Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 177:

     We can see from (34) that Determiners are sisters of N-bar and daughters of N-double-bar; Adjuncts are both sisters and daughters of N-bar; and Complements are sisters of N and daughters of N-bar. This means that Adjuncts resemble Complements in that both are daughters of N-bar; but they differ from Complements in that Adjuncts are sisters of N-bar, whereas Complements are sisters of N. Likewise, it means that Adjuncts resemble Determiners in that both are sisters of N-bar, but they differ from Determiners in that Adjuncts are daughters of N-bar, whereas Determiners are daughters of N-double-bar.

8. (rhetoric) Symploce.
9. (category theory) One of a pair of morphisms which relate to each other through a pair of adjoint functors.

adjunct (comparative more adjunct, superlative most adjunct)

1. Connected in a subordinate function.
   • c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii], page 11:

     Though that my death were adiunct to my Act,
     By heauen I would doe it.

2. Added to a faculty or staff in a secondary position.

adjunct (third-person singular simple present adjuncts, present participle adjuncting, simple past and past participle adjuncted)

1. (intransitive, informal) To work as an adjunct professor.
   • 2015 November 24, Noah Davis, quoting Monica Brannon, “How Do You Make a Living, Visiting Professor?”, in Pacific Standard‎, Santa Barbara, C.A.: The Miller-McCune Center […], →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-08-18:

     I also nannied through the first part of graduate school. I had friends who bartended or worked at a wine store and also adjuncted. A lot of people would package these jobs together.

   • 2017 April 15, Emily Jordan, “Let me be misunderstood: The final episode of HBO's "Girls" and how we really feel about Hannah Horvath”, in Salon.com‎, archived from the original on 2023-08-23:

     A sudden fantasy emerges of Adam adjuncting at Hannah's college, a sweet Mr. Mom to Paul-Louis' (Riz Ahmed) baby while Hannah becomes a professor slash internet celeb -- but there I go writing fanfiction.

   • 2020 July 7, Lydia Kiesling, “’To fail but still mostly be safe’: Lynn Steger Strong wrestles with precarity and privilege”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-09-28:

     In Want, out this month, Strong homes in on those themes. In this novel, her second, narrator Elizabeth is raising two small children with her husband, a carpenter, in New York City, while going through a bankruptcy and teaching low-income students at a charter school and adjuncting at a prestigious university.

   • 2022 July 26, Donte Kirby, quoting Tronster Hartley, “Want to break into tech? Software devs say to learn these coding languages”, in Technical.ly‎, archived from the original on 2022-12-09:

     I wish I had a cut and dry answer to this question. When I adjunct at the University of Baltimore, I get asked a similar question by my students every semester.

From Middle Dutch adjoinct, from Latin adiunctus.

• IPA^(key): /ɑˈdjʏŋkt/, /ɑtˈjʏŋkt/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: ad‧junct
• Rhymes: -ʏŋkt

adjunct m (plural adjuncten)

1. An adjunct, a subordinate person, esp. an attendant of a government official.

• adjunct-directeur

• → Indonesian: ajun

Borrowed from German Adjunkt or Latin adjunctus.

adjunct m or n (feminine singular adjunctă, masculine plural adjuncți, feminine and neuter plural adjuncte)

1. deputy