Carcinogen

//kɑɹˈsɪnəd͡ʒən// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A substance or agent that can cause cancer.

    "We know there are substances in our environment that are proven carcinogens—ionizing radiation, electromagnetic fields, organochlorines, pesticides and herbicides."

  2. 2
    any substance that produces cancer wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
cancerogencarcinogenic

Example

More examples

"DDT is a carcinogen which was commonly used in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s."

Etymology

From carcino- + -gen.

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