Standard Lemma guide

septicemia

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.

1

noun

Meaning 1

A disease caused by the presence of pathogenic organisms, especially bacteria, or their toxins, in the bloodstream, characterized by chills and fever.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: countable, uncountable

Topics: medicine, pathology, sciences

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: blood poisoning, septic fever

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

invasion of the bloodstream by virulent microorganisms from a focus of infection

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: blood poisoning, septicaemia

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: sepsis, blood disease, blood disorder

Narrower terms: puerperal fever, childbed fever, pyemia, pyaemia, toxemia, toxaemia, fowl cholera, shipping fever, shipping pneumonia

History

Etymology

Borrowed from New Latin sēpticaemia, from Latin sēpticus + -aemia.

Across languages

Translations

30 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Bulgarian: се́псис (sépsis) — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Catalan: septicèmia — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Catalan: sèpsia — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Chinese Mandarin: 敗血病 /败血病 (bàixuèbìng) — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Chinese Mandarin: 敗血症 /败血症 (bàixuèzhèng) — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Czech: sepse — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Danish: sepsis — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Dutch: bloedvergiftiging — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Faroese: blóðeitran — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Finnish: verenmyrkytys — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Finnish: septikemia — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • French: septicémie — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • German: Blutvergiftung — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • German: Sepsis — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Greek: σηψαιμία (sipsaimía) — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Icelandic: blóðeitrun — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Icelandic: blóðsýking — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Italian: setticemia — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Māori: mate ero — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Māori: mate toto ero — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Navajo: kʼaasdá — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Portuguese: septicemia — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Romanian: septicemie — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Russian: септицеми́я (sɛpticemíja) — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Russian: се́псис (sɛ́psis) — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Russian: зараже́ние кро́ви (zaražénije króvi) — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Slovak: sepsa — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Spanish: septicemia — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Turkish: septisemi — disease caused by pathogens in the blood
  • Welsh: gwenwyniad gwaed — disease caused by pathogens in the blood