allergy

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English

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Etymology

Borrowed from German Allergie. Coined by Austrian pediatrician Clemens von Pirquet in 1906 from Ancient Greek ἄλλος (állos, “other”) + ἔργον (érgon, “work, activity”), on the model of Energie.

Pronunciation

Noun

allergy (plural allergies)

  2. (medicine, immunology, broadly) A disorder of the immune system causing adverse reactions to substances (allergens) not harmful to most and marked by the body's production of histamines and associated with atopy, anaphylaxis, and asthma; any condition of hypersensitivity to a substance.
    2. (medicine, immunology, strictly) Specifically, hypersensitivity of class I in the modern classification thereof: the immunoglobulin E–mediated type.
  3. (informal) An antipathy, as toward a person or activity.
    He has an allergy to reality TV.

Usage notes

From its coining in 1906 until the 1960s, the word allergy always covered any kind of (what humans now call) hypersensitivity reactions. Since then, the word also has a stricter sense referring specifically to only a subset of them, mediated by a certain antibody. Both senses remain in wide use.

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Translations

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