Meaning & use
pathogen
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountable
A very small living thing, such as a bacterium or virus, that causes disease in a host.
Grammar: Countable: one pathogen, several pathogens. Use 'a pathogen' when naming one type.
Patterns
- a pathogen causes something
- the spread of a pathogen
- a pathogen infects someone
The pathogen spreads through tiny droplets in the air.
Scientists identified the pathogen responsible for the outbreak.
Vaccines train the body to fight a specific pathogen.
Word forms
| plural | pathogens |
|---|
Common combinations
- a dangerous pathogen
- The lab stores dangerous pathogens in locked freezers.
- the pathogen spreads
- The pathogen spreads quickly in crowded places.
- identify a pathogen
- Doctors must identify the pathogen before choosing a treatment.
- a foodborne pathogen
- Salmonella is a common foodborne pathogen.
Synonyms and how they differ
- germ
- Everyday word for any microbe that can cause illness; pathogen is the technical term used in science and medicine.
- microbe
- A general word for any tiny organism, whether harmful or not; a pathogen is specifically one that causes disease.
- virus
- Names one type of pathogen; a virus is not a cell and needs a host to reproduce.
Word family
- pathogenic adjective
- Able to cause disease.
- pathogenicity noun
- The ability of a germ to cause disease.
- pathology noun
- The study of disease.
Commonly confused: pathogen or antigen?
pathogen vs antigen
An antigen is any substance that triggers an immune response; a pathogen is a living germ that causes disease.
Practice
Choose the sentence that uses pathogen correctly.
Choose one answer.
A pathogen is a disease-causing germ, so it can spread through water. The other options treat pathogen as a medicine, a physical object, or a sensation, which are wrong meanings.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “pathogen”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.