anaphylactic shock

1. 1.

   a severe and rapid and sometimes fatal hypersensitivity reaction to a substance (especially a vaccine or penicillin or shellfish or insect venom) to which the organism has become sensitized by previous exposure

   Broaderanaphylaxis

Questions about anaphylactic shock

What does anaphylactic shock mean?

anaphylactic shock means "a severe and rapid and sometimes fatal hypersensitivity reaction to a substance (especially a vaccine or penicillin or shellfish or insect venom) to which the organism has become sensitized by previous exposure".

Is anaphylactic shock a common word?

anaphylactic shock is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.