pathogen
Americannoun
-
pathogens
plural
noun
-
An agent that causes infection or disease, especially a microorganism, such as a bacterium or protozoan, or a virus.
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See Note at germ
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of pathogen
Explanation
A pathogen is a tiny living organism, such as a bacterium or virus, that makes people sick. Washing your hands frequently helps you avoid the pathogens that can make you sick. Pathos is the Greek word for disease and -genes means "born of." So, a pathogen is something that causes disease, like a virus like the rhinovirus, which causes the common cold. At summer picnics, people are cautious about keeping certain foods like potato salad in coolers with ice — the eggs in such dishes spoil quickly out in the heat, introducing pathogens that can make people sick.
Vocabulary lists containing pathogen
Common Senses: Path ("Feeling")
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The Martian
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“Similar research could certainly be used in the development of better vaccines and therapeutics for the virus — but it could also be used to make the pathogen more dangerous,” Anthropic wrote.
From Salon ● Sep. 11, 2026
Rather than testing whether a person has antibodies against a single pathogen, researchers can examine a much broader immune landscape shaped by previous exposure to viruses, bacteria and other immune targets.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 21, 2026
It was a sick new business model and digital pathogen.
From Slate ● Aug. 20, 2026
The virus was detected this month in a Phillip Island penguin that had died, the first infection in the colony by a pathogen that has caused severe disease and death in birds worldwide.
From Barron's ● Aug. 20, 2026
The first is the lack of acquired immunity—immunity gained from a previous exposure to a pathogen.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Patterns like this have previously been observed mainly among pathogens, making the finding especially notable for ordinary gut bacteria.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 7, 2026
When neutrophils encounter pathogens, they can release toxic substances and even destroy themselves, spilling long strands of biological material that form web-like traps around invading microbes.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 3, 2026
As people move deeper and deeper into ecosystems and territories where few, if any, had lived before, they risk interacting with pathogens that were previously confined.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026
The prospect of AI helping people develop deadly pathogens or other biological hazards has long been a concern among AI safety experts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 9, 2026
The only pathogens in this waste are the ones I already have.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
