foodborne

IPA/ˈfuːd.bɔːn/
IPA/ˈfuːd.bɔːrn/

foodborne — adjective

  • foodbornepositive
  • more foodbornecomparative
  • most foodbornesuperlative

1. describing an illness or infection that you get from eating food which contains

1.adjectiveB2
Definition

describing an illness or infection that you get from eating food which contains harmful bacteria, viruses, or other dangerous substances

Example

The health department reported a foodborne illness that sickened ten people last week.

foodborne + illness — common collocation for diseases from food

Restaurant workers must wash their hands to prevent foodborne diseases from spreading.

Common collocations
  • foodborne illness
  • foodborne disease
  • foodborne outbreak
  • foodborne infection
  • foodborne pathogen

Grammar Patterns

foodborne + noun (illness, disease, outbreak, infection)

Usage Note

Frequently used attributively before nouns describing health problems: foodborne illness, foodborne disease, foodborne outbreak. The word itself does not change form.

Common Mistakes

I got a foodborne from the market.
I got a foodborne illness from the market.
foodborne is an adjective, not a noun, and must modify a word like illness or disease.
The foodborne chicken made us sick.
The foodborne illness from the chicken made us sick.
foodborne describes the disease, not the food itself.

Word family

  • food
    nounA1
  • food poisoning
    nounB1

Synonym discussion

Sense: adjective/1

All three describe how diseases spread, but with key differences. Foodborne specifically means the disease comes from contaminated food or drink — it says nothing about person-to-person transmission. Infectious means a disease is caused by germs that enter the body, whether through food, air, or touch. Contagious means a disease spreads directly from one person to another through contact. For example: 'Salmonella is a foodborne illness you get from undercooked eggs' (source is food), 'The flu is contagious, so stay home' (person to person), and 'Any wound can become infectious if bacteria get in' (germ entry). Use foodborne when the route is clearly through what you ate or drank.

foodborne ↗infectious ↗contagious ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

Etymology

Old EnglishEnglish

Combines food (from Old English fōda, meaning 'nourishment') with borne (from Old English beran, meaning 'to carry'). The compound foodborne emerged in the late 19th century as modern microbiology linked contaminated food to the spread of diseases such as typhoid and cholera.

First known use

1898

1898, in the meaning defined above