Urushiol

//ʊˈɹuːʃiˌɔl// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An oil found in plants of the family Anacardiaceae, causing an allergic skin rash on contact; consists of a variable mixture of several related organic compounds. countable, uncountable

    "All three produce an oil, called urushiol, that is a potent allergen. Urushiol is most abundant in the leaves and stems of these plants..."

Synonyms

All synonyms
anacardic acidtoxicodendrol

Example

More examples

"All three produce an oil, called urushiol, that is a potent allergen. Urushiol is most abundant in the leaves and stems of these plants..."

Etymology

From Japanese 漆 (うるし, urushi, “lacquer tree”) + -ol (“oil”).

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