Autoimmune
Etymology
From Greek “autos” (self) joined to “immune,” which comes from Latin “immunis” (exempt from duty or burden). The compound, coined in the mid-twentieth century, captures a paradox the ancients could not have named — a defense system exempting nothing, not even its own host, from attack. The concept reframed many chronic diseases as errors of self-recognition.
adjective · /aw-toh-ih-MYOON/
Describing a condition in which the immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s own healthy tissue.
What it names
A whole family of baffling illnesses — from type 1 diabetes to rheumatoid arthritis to lupus — united by their shared root cause: the body’s defenses turned against the body itself.
Example
Her fatigue and joint pain turned out to be an autoimmune disorder, not an infection, so antibiotics were never going to help.
Related idea
An autoimmune reaction attacks the self; an allergy attacks a harmless outsider like pollen. Both are the immune system misfiring, but one mistakes the body for an enemy and the other mistakes a bystander for one.