Allergen

//ˈælə(ɹ)ˌd͡ʒɛn// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A substance which causes an allergic reaction.

    "Pollen, dust, and spores are common allergens."

  2. 2
    any substance that can cause an allergy wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
agglutininallergic disorderallergyanaphylactinantiantibodyantibody

Example

More examples

"A lab at the University of California, Los Angeles is trying to solve that problem by developing a handheld allergen detector for consumers."

Etymology

Syncopated compound of allergy + -gen, coined on the model of pharmaceutical words such as pathogen and antigen.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.