16240 IUPAC Gold Book - toxicant 10.1351/goldbook.16240 16240 current 1 This is the preferred term for a substance that is considered to be toxic under circumstances which are thought likely to happen. This word comes from the Greek toxikos "of or for the bow" and was originally applied to the poison used to tip arrows. The term "poison" is nearly a synonym, but tends to be applied to substances that may be deliberately used for poisoning, such as pesticides, and often has overtones of criminal use. PAC, 2007, 79, 1583. 'Explanatory dictionary of key terms in toxicology (IUPAC Recommendations 2007)' on page 1630 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac200779091583) https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/16240/html https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/16240/json https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/16240/plain Citation: 'toxicant' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.16240 The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms. If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org . The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using. 2026-04-21T00:10:59+00:00