Botox

How to spell botox

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce botox

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does botox mean?

1. nounA purified form of botulinum toxin injected to relax muscles, used to smooth wrinkles or treat certain medical conditions.

Botox in a sentence

• The clinic offers botox treatments for frown lines on weekday afternoons.

• Her dermatologist explained how botox temporarily relaxes the facial muscles.

Where does botox come from?

Language of origin: Greek

Botox is a registered trademark, coined in the 1980s as a deliberate blend of the two words 'botulinum toxin'. The underlying substance is a protein produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, whose name traces back to the Latin botulus, meaning 'sausage', because an early outbreak of the food poisoning called botulism was linked to spoiled sausages. The 'tox' half comes from the Greek toxikon, originally 'poison for arrows', built on toxon meaning 'a bow', which is the same root behind the word 'toxic'. The pharmaceutical company Allergan trimmed and fused these elements into the snappy brand name now used for cosmetic and medical injections that relax muscles. Although it began as a strict trademark, the word has slipped into everyday speech as a near-generic term, which is why people often write it in lowercase. The spelling is mostly phonetic, so the only real trap is remembering the single 't' and the closing 'x' rather than 'cks'.

How the word is built

• bot- (from botulinum, the bacterial toxin)
• -ox (clipped from toxin)