Carcinogenic. Carcinogenic. The two terms are commonly used without any real distinction being made between them. However, there would be a slight difference between the two.
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Between carcinogenic and carcinogenic, only one vowel changes. Is this enough to make a real difference? For the Petit Robert or the Larousse, the answer is no. Their respective definition of carcinogen is as follows: “capable of causing Cancer “And” which can cause a Cancer“. And they give for a synonym: carcinogenic.
The National Cancer Institute seems to agree. According to him, there is no real difference between the two terms. Moreover, these are used indifferently on its site Internet. So why two words rather than one? Another quirk of the French language? Not quite.
Carcinogenic and carcinogenic: a slight nuance?
According to specialists from the newspaper Le Monde, the term carcinogen would simply have appeared in the French language to designate a harmful substancebefore the carcinogenic term. The two don’t really have a different definition.
Finally, only a few purists of medical vocabulary distinguish between the two terms. For them, the term carcinogen, with an “i”, denotes a substance that promotes the development of cancer. The term carcinogen, with an “o”, is used to describe a substance that promotes the development of cancer.
Yet the Academy of Medicine seems to have made a choice. She banned the word “carcinogenic” in favor of the term “carcinogenic”. Perhaps for more consistency with the use of the word “cancerology” when the term “cancerology” does not exist.
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