Standard Lemma guide

antigen

noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • US: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • CMU ARPABET: AE1 N T AH0 JH AH0 N Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

noun

Meaning 1

A substance that induces an immune response, usually foreign (nonself) but not always so.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Topics: immunology, medicine, sciences

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: antibody, Ab, immunoglobulin, immune globulin

Broader terms: substance, material

2

noun

Meaning 2

any substance (as a toxin or enzyme) that stimulates an immune response in the body (especially the production of antibodies)

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: substance

Narrower terms: immunogen, immunizing agent, agglutinogen, fetoprotein, foetoprotein, anatoxin, toxoid, rhesus factor, Rh factor, Rh

History

Etymology

From French antigène, from anti- + gène.

Across languages

Translations

41 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Azerbaijani: antigen — substance that induces an immune response
  • Bulgarian: антиген (antigen) — substance that induces an immune response
  • Catalan: antigen — substance that induces an immune response
  • Chinese Mandarin: 抗原 (kàngyuán) — substance that induces an immune response
  • Czech: antigen — substance that induces an immune response
  • Dutch: antigeen — substance that induces an immune response
  • Esperanto: antigeno — substance that induces an immune response
  • Finnish: antigeeni — substance that induces an immune response
  • French: antigène — substance that induces an immune response
  • Galician: antíxeno — substance that induces an immune response
  • Georgian: ანტიგენი (anṭigeni) — substance that induces an immune response
  • German: Antigen — substance that induces an immune response
  • Greek: αντιγόνο (antigóno) — substance that induces an immune response
  • Hungarian: antigén — substance that induces an immune response
  • Indonesian: antigen — substance that induces an immune response
  • Irish: antaigin — substance that induces an immune response
  • Italian: antigene — substance that induces an immune response
  • Japanese: 抗原 (kōgen) — substance that induces an immune response
  • Kazakh: антиген (antigen) — substance that induces an immune response
  • Khmer: អង់ទីហ្សែន (ʼɑngtiizaen) — substance that induces an immune response
  • Korean: 항원 (hang'won) — substance that induces an immune response
  • Northern Kurdish: dijepeydaker — substance that induces an immune response
  • Latin: antigenum — substance that induces an immune response
  • Macedonian: антиген (antigen) — substance that induces an immune response
  • Malay: antigen — substance that induces an immune response
  • Malayalam: പ്രതിജനകം (pratijanakaṁ) — substance that induces an immune response
  • Māori: akiaki paturopi — substance that induces an immune response
  • Persian: آنتیژن — substance that induces an immune response
  • Polish: antygen — substance that induces an immune response
  • Portuguese: antígeno — substance that induces an immune response
  • Romanian: antigen — substance that induces an immune response
  • Russian: антиге́н (antigén) — substance that induces an immune response
  • Spanish: antígeno — substance that induces an immune response
  • Swahili: antijeni — substance that induces an immune response
  • Swedish: antigen — substance that induces an immune response
  • Tamil: பிறபொருளெதிரியாக்கி (piṟaporuḷetiriyākki) — substance that induces an immune response
  • Thai: สารก่อภูมิต้านทาน (sǎan-gɔ̀ɔ-puum-dtâan-taan) — substance that induces an immune response
  • Thai: แอนติเจน (ɛɛn-dtì-jên) — substance that induces an immune response
  • Turkish: antijen — substance that induces an immune response
  • Uzbek: antigen — substance that induces an immune response
  • Vietnamese: kháng nguyên — substance that induces an immune response
Real reading context

antigen in complete knowledge articles