toxicity

noun tox·ic·i·ty \ täk-ˈsi-sə-tē \

|Updated on: 21 Jun 2018

Editor's Note: Did You Know?

Definition of toxicity

plural toxicities

: the quality or state of being toxic: such as

a : the quality, state, or relative degree of being poisonous

measuring the toxicity level of the soil

The toxicity of some chemical agents degrades significantly over time, so it is unclear how lethal the stockpiles are.
—David S. Cloud

Administering a cocktail of drugs would dilute the toxicities of the different drugs and minimize the development of viral resistance to them.
—Rudy M. Baum and Ron Dagani

b : an extremely harsh, malicious, or harmful quality

In the past few days, I've tuned in to C-SPAN to watch a number of the televised Senate debates, which illustrate all too vividly the toxicity of an uncivil tongue.
—Connie Schultz

In much of the ensuing commentary, court watchers worried that the justices' soaring rates of written dissents, nasty and personal attacks and scathing remarks read aloud from the bench bespeak a new toxicity in Supreme Court discourse.
—Dahlia Lithwick

See toxicity defined for English-language learners

Recent Examples of toxicity from the Web

But make no mistake: The noxious personality cocktail that gave the entire season the distinct vibe of oozing toxicity also brought about a seismic shift in TRW’s milieu, which became only too apparent in the following season, set in Hawaii.

— rebecca schuman, Longreads, "When ‘The Real World’ Gave Up on Reality," 6 June 2018
But what made this provocation different from Roseanne’s previous Twitter firebombs was their scale and toxicity — and the reality that this time, as opposed to her antics predating the Roseanne reboot, Disney and ABC owned Barr.

— frank rich, Daily Intelligencer, "When Trump Attacks Sessions, He Sounds Like a Guilty Man," 31 May 2018
Some were beaten or sterilized; others died in fires or escape attempts, or from the toxicity of their treatments.

— julia m. klein, BostonGlobe.com, "When America imprisoned ‘promiscuous’ women," 23 May 2018
The sweeping change, long sought by conservatives, could have significant implications for decisions on everything from the toxicity of household products to the level of soot that power plants can emit.

— the washington post, NOLA.com, "EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt unveils controversial 'transparency' rule," 24 Apr. 2018
This is a simple but powerful way of separating yourself from the other person’s toxicity.

— fran hauser, Time, "How to Cope When You're Being Bullied at Work," 23 Apr. 2018
Collateral damage In certain blood cancers, this problem of collateral toxicity is not so much avoided as managed.

— marie mccullough, Philly.com, "Cracking the cancer code: Can immune therapy treat tumors?," 5 Apr. 2018
Symptoms of salt toxicity include vomiting and diarrhea.

— karen asp, Good Housekeeping, "6 Ways To Protect Your Dog From Common (But Potentially Deadly) Winter Dangers," 29 Dec. 2017
With lung cancer, chemotherapy typically leads to only a 5 percent improvement in people’s chances of living five years, but comes with a 70 percent chance of being exposed to serious toxicities.

— cindy goodman, miamiherald, "Immunotherapy is giving some cancer patients a new life when they had all but given up | Miami Herald," 25 May 2018

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

Did You Know?

Toxicity is often a relative thing; in the words of a famous old saying, "The dose makes the poison". Thus, it's possible to die from drinking too much water, and lives have been saved by tiny doses of arsenic. Even though botulinum toxin is the most toxic substance known, it's the basic ingredient in Botox, which is injected into the face to get rid of wrinkles. With some poisons, mere skin contact can be lethal; others are lethal when breathed into the lungs in microscopic amounts. To determine if a chemical will be officially called a poison, researchers often use the "LD50" test: If 50 milligrams of the substance for every kilogram of an animal's body weight results in the death of 50% of test animals, the chemical is a poison. But there are problems with such tests, and toxicity remains a very individual concept.