Toxin

How to spell toxin

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce toxin

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does toxin mean?

1. nounA poisonous substance, especially one produced by a living organism such as a bacterium, plant, or animal.

Toxin in a sentence

• The bacteria release a toxin that causes severe food poisoning.

• Doctors gave the patient an antidote to neutralise the snake toxin.

Where does toxin come from?

Language of origin: Greek

Toxin traces back to the Greek toxikon, which meant 'poison', but the fuller phrase was toxikon pharmakon, literally 'poison for the bow'. That root toxon meant 'a bow', and the deadly liquid in question was the poison that ancient archers smeared on their arrowheads. The sense narrowed over time from 'arrow poison' to 'poison' in general, and the word passed into Latin as toxicum before surfacing in English. The modern scientific term was coined in the late nineteenth century by adding the chemical suffix -in (as in 'insulin' or 'albumin') to give the meaning 'a poisonous substance produced by a living organism'. Knowing that the ending is the chemistry suffix -in, not '-ine' or '-an', is the key to spelling it, and it also explains why toxin sounds exactly like tocsin, an unrelated word for an alarm bell.

How the word is built

• tox- (from Greek toxikon: poison)
• -in (chemical/substance suffix)