Words / B / Medicine

benign

adjective/bɪˈnaɪn/

B2CEFR level
45/100Rarity: uncommon
TechnicalRegister

Not harmful; not cancerous.

The biopsy confirmed the lump was benign.

Similar: harmless, non-malignant

Origin: Latin benignus 'kind'.

Topic: Diagnosis in Medical English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

Get words like benign on your lock screen, a few a day, with review that makes them stick.

Download on the App Store Lexfall puts a new word on your home and lock screen through widgets, so you learn without opening an app. Free to download. After a free trial, a subscription unlocks every field. Built for iPhone, iOS 15.1 or later.
QR code that opens Lexfall on the App Store
On a computer?Scan with your iPhone camera.

More medicine words: Diagnosis