Word.ws English Dictionary

horror autotoxicus

horror autotoxicus noun: the now-discredited principle that the body will not harm itself by its own immune reactions.

Noun

horror autotoxicus (uncountable)

  1. (historical) The now-discredited principle that the body will not harm itself by its own immune reactions.
    • Ehrlich's dictum of horror autotoxicus makes no claim that autoantibodies may not be formed; it only suggests that they are somehow prevented from acting.1989, Arthur M. Silverstein, A History of Immunology, →ISBN, page 163

Origin of horror autotoxicus

Latinate neologism coined c. 1900 by Paul Ehrlich in German, from Latin horror, auto- (“self”), toxicus (“toxic”). Compare horror vacui.

Questions about horror autotoxicus

What does horror autotoxicus mean?
Horror autotoxicus means the now-discredited principle that the body will not harm itself by its own immune reactions.
What part of speech is horror autotoxicus?
Horror autotoxicus is a noun.

Words near horror autotoxicus in the dictionary

  1. Horrocks boxes
  2. Horrockses
  3. Horrocksford
  4. Horrocksian
  5. horror
  6. horror autotoxicus
  7. horror chamber
  8. horror chambers
  9. horror film
  10. horror films
  11. horror flick

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: horror autotoxicus (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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