noxious

English

Alternative forms

• noctious (obsolete)

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈnɒkʃəs/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Adjective

noxious (comparative more noxious, superlative most noxious)

1. Harmful; injurious.
   • 2014 June 14, “It's a gas”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8891:

     But out of sight is out of mind. And that […] means that many old sewers have been neglected and are in dire need of repair. If that repair does not come in time, the result is noxious and potentially hazardous.

Collocations

with nouns

• noxious substance
• noxious chemical
• noxious fumes
• noxious gas
• noxious odor
• noxious plant
• noxious weed
• noxious animal
• noxious stimulus
• noxious stimulation

Synonyms

• harmful
• injurious
• scathel
• see also Thesaurus:harmful

Derived terms

• noxiously
• noxiousness

Related terms

Etymologically related to noxia (“hurt, injury, damage”)

• obnoxious
• nocent
• innocent

Translations

harmful

• Arabic: please add this translation if you can
• Asturian: nocivu m, dañible m or f
• Basque: kaltegarri (eu)
• Bulgarian: вреден (bg) (vreden), нездравословен (bg) (nezdravosloven)
• Catalan: nociu (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Corsican: nucivu m
• Estonian: kahjur-
• Finnish: vahingollinen (fi), haitallinen (fi), myrkyllinen (fi)
• French: nocif (fr) m
• Friulian: nocîf
• Galician: nocivo m, daniño m
• German: Schad- (de), schädlich (de)
• Hindi: please add this translation if you can
• Hungarian: kártékony (hu), ártalmas (hu)
• Italian: insalubre (it), nocivo (it), malsano (it)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Japanese: 有毒な (ゆうどくな, yūdokuna)
• Korean: 유해한 (yuhaehan)
• Latin: noxius m
• Latvian: kaitīgs
• Maori: orotā
• Persian: please add this translation if you can
• Polish: szkodliwy (pl), niezdrowy (pl)
• Portuguese: nocivo (pt) m, daninho (pt) m
• Romanian: nociv (ro) m or n, vătămător (ro) m or n, nesănătos (ro) m or n
• Russian: ядови́тый (ru) (jadovítyj), вре́дный (ru) (vrédnyj)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: ште̏тан m

  Roman: štȅtan (sh) m

• Spanish: nocivo (es) m, daniño m
• Turkish: zararlı (tr)
• Vietnamese: please add this translation if you can

Further reading

• “noxious”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “noxious”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “noxious”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “noxious”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.