hypersensitised
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
- Adjective:
- Having an allergy or an excessive, unusual susceptibility to a specific factor: Describes a state where an individual or organism reacts with an abnormally strong or adverse response to a substance or stimulus that is typically harmless to most others. This often implies a prior sensitization process.
Usage
- The term is primarily used in medical, biological, and psychological contexts to describe a heightened, often problematic, reactive state.
- It is typically used attributively (before a noun) or predicatively (after a linking verb like 'be' or 'become').
Examples
- Attributive use:
- The patient was diagnosed with a hypersensitised immune system.
- Researchers studied the hypersensitised response in the skin cells.
- Predicative use:
- After the series of injections, the test animals became hypersensitised to the protein.
- She is hypersensitised to criticism due to past experiences.
Advanced Usage
- In a psychological/emotional context: While its core meaning is physiological, it can be extended metaphorically to describe an extreme emotional sensitivity.
- Having grown up in a conflict-averse family, he was hypersensitised to any sign of disagreement.
Variants and Related Words
- Hypersensitive (adjective): The more common synonym, meaning excessively or abnormally sensitive.
- Hypersensitize (verb): To cause to become hypersensitised.
- The treatment protocol could hypersensitize the patient to the drug.
- Hypersensitivity (noun): The condition or quality of being hypersensitive.
- The test confirmed a hypersensitivity to pollen.
Synonyms
- Allergic
- Oversensitive
- Supersensitive
Antonyms
- Desensitised
- Tolerant
- Unresponsive
Notes
- Hypersensitised is often used interchangeably with hypersensitive. However, hypersensitised can more strongly imply that the state is an acquired condition resulting from prior exposure or sensitization, whereas hypersensitive can describe either an innate or acquired trait.
- The spelling hypersensitized is the preferred form in American English.
Adjective
- having an allergy or peculiar or excessive susceptibility (especially to a specific factor)
- allergic children
- hypersensitive to pollen