Standard Lemma guide

noxious

adj · 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.

  • Received-Pronunciation: /ˈnɒkʃəs/
  • General-American: /ˈnɑkʃəs/
  • Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • CMU ARPABET: N AA1 K SH AH0 S Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

adj

Meaning 1

Harmful; injurious.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

adjective

Meaning 2

injurious to physical or mental health

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

Examples

  • noxious chemical wastes
  • noxious ideas

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: innocuous

History

Etymology

From Latin noxius (“hurtful, injurious”), from noxa (“hurt, injury”), from nocere (“to hurt, injure”); see nocent.

Across languages

Translations

47 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Asturian: nocivu — harmful
  • Asturian: dañible — harmful
  • Basque: kaltegarri — harmful
  • Bulgarian: вреден (vreden) — harmful
  • Bulgarian: нездравословен (nezdravosloven) — harmful
  • Catalan: nociu — harmful
  • Chinese Mandarin: 有害的 (yǒuhài de) — harmful
  • Corsican: nucivu — harmful
  • Czech: škodlivý — harmful
  • Czech: nezdravý — harmful
  • Esperanto: venefna — harmful
  • Estonian: kahjur- — harmful
  • Finnish: vahingollinen — harmful
  • Finnish: haitallinen — harmful
  • Finnish: myrkyllinen — harmful
  • French: nocif — harmful
  • Friulian: nocîf — harmful
  • Galician: nocivo — harmful
  • Galician: daniño — harmful
  • German: Schad- — harmful
  • German: schädlich — harmful
  • Hungarian: kártékony — harmful
  • Hungarian: ártalmas — harmful
  • Italian: insalubre — harmful
  • Italian: nocivo — harmful
  • Italian: malsano — harmful
  • Japanese: 有毒な (yūdokuna) — harmful
  • Korean: 유해한 (yuhaehan) — harmful
  • Latin: noxius — harmful
  • Latvian: kaitīgs — harmful
  • Māori: orotā — harmful
  • Polish: szkodliwy — harmful
  • Polish: niezdrowy — harmful
  • Portuguese: nocivo — harmful
  • Portuguese: daninho — harmful
  • Romanian: nociv — harmful
  • Romanian: vătămător — harmful
  • Romanian: nesănătos — harmful
  • Russian: ядови́тый (jadovítyj) — harmful
  • Russian: вре́дный (vrédnyj) — harmful
  • Serbo-Croatian: ште̏тан — harmful
  • Serbo-Croatian: štȅtan — harmful
  • Spanish: nocivo — harmful
  • Spanish: nocible — harmful
  • Spanish: nocente — harmful
  • Turkish: zararlı — harmful
  • Vietnamese: độc hại — harmful