Glossary
contraindication
A contraindication is a condition or circumstance in which a treatment should not be used, because its risk outweighs its benefit.
A contraindication is a reason not to give a treatment: a patient state, another drug, or a situation in which the intervention would do more harm than good. Read the word by its parts — contra- against, and the ending that makes it a condition — so a contraindication is literally an against-indication. The distinction worth carrying is between absolute and relative: an absolute contraindication rules the treatment out, while a relative one means weigh it against the alternatives. In a passage about errors, the contraindication is usually the fact that was missed, and the question asks which step would have caught it — check the note against the stated reasons before answering.
Taught in
Related terms
- word part — A word part is a prefix, root, suffix or combining vowel — one of the pieces a medical word is built from.
- context clue — A context clue is information in the sentence around an unknown word that narrows what the word means — a definition, a restatement, a contrast, an example, a consequence or the general sense.
Source: MedlinePlus (US National Library of Medicine) consumer guidance on understanding medical words, which the vocabulary guide follows for the prefix, root, suffix and combining-vowel system. US federal government material, not subject to copyright in the United States. Every definition and example above was written for this course in our own words; no dictionary or glossary text is reproduced. (MedlinePlus accessed 2026-10-27; definitions written 2026-10-27)