Other forms: allergies
An allergy is when your body reacts badly to something harmless — nuts, dust, pollen, cats. The immune system attacks the wrong target.
Reactions range from a sneeze to anaphylaxis, which is a medical emergency, and that is why food labelling laws are so strict about the fourteen main allergens. It takes to. The adjective is allergic, which is also used loosely and jokingly, since saying you are allergic to mornings is not a diagnosis. Hay fever is an allergy to pollen, and an allergen is whatever sets it off.
1nounallergyA harmful immune reaction to a normally harmless substance.
“She has a serious allergy to shellfish.”
Allergy was coined in 1906 by the Viennese paediatrician Clemens von Pirquet, from Greek allos, other, and ergon, work: the body doing other work than it should. He built it on the pattern of energy.
German
Allergie
English, today
allergy
Built from
Borrowed from German Allergie. Borrowed from German Allergie. Coined by Austrian pediatrician Clemens von Pirquet in 1906 from Ancient Greek ἄλλος (“other”) + ἔργον (“work, activity”), on the model of Energie.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA