Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Toxin
/ˈtɑːksɪn/noun
A poison produced by a living organism, especially by bacteria.
The Greek roots
τόξον
tóxon
bow
φάρμακον
phármakon
drug, poison
Literally: “bow poison”
The story of the word
A bow is hiding inside this word. τοξικὸν φάρμακον was the poison archers smeared on arrowheads, from τόξον, the bow; Latin kept the adjective alone and toxicum came to mean poison outright. Ludwig Brieger trimmed the ending in 1886 to name the poisonous products of bacteria, and the archery has been invisible ever since.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1886
Same family
toxicintoxicatetoxicologyantitoxin
In a sentence
Botulinum toxin is the most lethal substance known, and clinics inject it into foreheads.
The lab was testing whether the algae released a toxin at that temperature.