allergy
noun
Simple meaning
A disorder of the immune system causing adverse reactions to substances not harmful to most and showing the body's production of histamines and associated with atopy.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
alerjeeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈælɚdʒi
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
informalfiguratively
An antipathy, as toward a person or activity.
medicineimmunologyloosely
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.
medicineimmunologystrictly
Specifically, hypersensitivity of class I in the modern classification thereof: the immunoglobulin E–mediated type.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- General and technical use
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An antipathy, as toward a person or activity.
Used this way, allergy is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in everyday conversation and social media or informal writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Casual
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Playful
- Usage feel
- Casual and conversational
Where it naturally appears
- Everyday conversation
- Social media/informal writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use allergy
- “My allergy to pollen makes me sneeze constantly during spring.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Characterized by or caused by allergy.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A diet designed to avoid the foods that you are allergic to.
An allergic reaction that becomes apparent in a sensitized person only minutes after contact.
An allergic reaction that becomes apparent only hours after contact.
Allergic reaction to a substance ingested in food.
An allergic reaction that becomes apparent in a sensitized person only minutes after contact.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Any substance that can cause an allergy.
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.