Toxicology

How to spell toxicology

10 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce toxicology

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does toxicology mean?

1. nounThe branch of science concerned with poisons and their effects on the body.

Toxicology in a sentence

• The hospital lab specialises in toxicology and drug screening.

• Her degree in toxicology led to a career investigating chemical hazards.

Where does toxicology come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word combines two Greek elements. The first is toxikon, a poison, which surprisingly began as a description of something smeared on arrows: it derives from toxon, meaning 'bow', and the phrase toxikon pharmakon literally meant 'poison for arrows'. Over time the arrow association faded and toxikon came to mean any poison. The second element is -logia, from logos, meaning 'word', 'reason', or 'study', the same ending found in biology and geology. The compound was assembled by scientists in the early 1800s as a formal name for the study of poisons and their effects on living things. Knowing that the core is the Greek tox- (poison) helps fix the spelling: the word keeps a single c and an i before the -ology, giving toxic + ology.

How the word is built

• toxico- (from Greek toxikon: poison)
• -logy (from Greek logia: study of)