English
toxin
Toxin may come from Latin toxicum ‘a poison used on the tips of arrows’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEtoxicum1‘a poison used on the tips of arrows’uncertain
- Englishearliest quotation 2017toxin1
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English toxin
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2017, Mark Carnall, Why do cephalopods produce ink? And what's ink made of, anyw: “The blue-ringed octopus Hapalochlaena lunulata has tetrodotoxin, the deadly…”.
Earlier history uncertain. See Wiktionary.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEtoxicumWiktionary, English toxin‘a poison used on the tips of arrows’uncertain
- Englishearliest quotation 2017toxinWiktionary, English toxin. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2017, Mark Carnall, Why do cephalopods produce ink? And what's ink made of, anyw: “The blue-ringed octopus Hapalochlaena lunulata has tetrodotoxin, the deadly…”
Formed from toxi + in
Proto-Indo-European *h₁én ‘in’
Proto-Germanic *in
Proto-West Germanic *in
Old English in
Middle English in ‘inside’
English in
Linked words
through Latin toxicum ‘a poison used on the tips of arrows’
Today it means
noun A toxic substance, specifically a poison produced by the biological processes of organisms.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “toxin”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Latin toxicum / toxin