ANTIGEN

Pronunciation (US):

• ANTIGEN (noun)
  The noun ANTIGEN has 1 sense:

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

  Familiarity information: ANTIGEN used as a noun is very rare.

• ANTIGEN (noun)

Meaning:

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

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Hypernyms ("antigen" is a kind of...):

matter; substance (that which has mass and occupies space)

Meronyms (parts of "antigen"):

antigenic determinant; determinant; epitope (the site on the surface of an antigen molecule to which an antibody attaches itself)

Domain category:

immunology (the branch of medical science that studies the body's immune system)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "antigen"):

immunizing agent; immunogen (any substance or organism that provokes an immune response (produces immunity) when introduced into the body)

agglutinogen (any substance that acts as an antigen to cause agglutinin production)

fetoprotein; foetoprotein (any of several antigens that occur naturally in the fetus and sometimes in adults with cancer)

anatoxin; toxoid (a bacterial toxin that has been weakened until it is no longer toxic but is strong enough to induce the formation of antibodies and immunity to the specific disease caused by the toxin)

Rh; Rh factor; rhesus factor (a blood group antigen possessed by Rh-positive people; if an Rh-negative person receives a blood transfusion from an Rh-positive person it can result in hemolysis and anemia)