humoral

adjective

hu·mor·al ˈhyü-mə-rəl

ˈyü-

: of, relating to, proceeding from, or involving a bodily humor (such as a hormone)

: relating to or being the part of immunity or the immune response that involves antibodies secreted by B cells and circulating in bodily fluids

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web B cells, also known as humoral cells, are a type of immune cell that make antibodies and are made in the bone marrow. —

Tasnim Ahmed, CNN, 10 Mar. 2022 The early focus in vaccine development and immunity surveillance has been heavily weighted toward neutralizing antibodies (the humoral response) because historically they are well understood and easy to measure. —

WSJ, 12 Jan. 2022 Current understanding dictates that much of the body’s ability to prevent infection comes from the humoral response; it’s now been very well documented that successive variants of SARS-CoV-2 evade by mutations primarily in the Spike protein. —

William A. Haseltine, Forbes, 17 Aug. 2022 Medieval scholars thought the plague arose from causes both universal (unfortunate astrological conjunctions) and particular (corrupted airs and humoral imbalances). —

Spencer Strub, The New York Review of Books, 25 Mar. 2020 But universities didn’t teach much more than Christian theology, philosophy and humoral theory, which still dominated medical thinking even though it was first popularized in Ancient Greece. —

Olivia Campbell, Smithsonian Magazine, 1 Mar. 2021 Even in the early and mid-19th century, physicians were still using humoral theory and competing with homeopaths and botanists for patients; surgeons were a crude last resort. —

Jordan Kisner, The Atlantic, 7 Mar. 2020 In the 19th century, numerous discoveries struck the final blow to the humoral system. —

Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian, 17 May 2017 The way this worked in practice was that doctors would prescribe specific foods to adjust their patient’s humoral balance. —

Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian, 17 May 2017 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'humoral.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.