# hygiene

/ˈhaɪˌdʒin/ (US) · /hˈaɪdʒiːn/ (UK)

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/hygiene
Updated: 2026-06-20

## Senses

### 1. cleanliness and health

noun · CEFR B1

the habit of keeping your body and your home clean to stay healthy.

For teachers: the conditions and practices that help to maintain health and prevent the spread of diseases.

- Good dental hygiene involves brushing your teeth at least twice a day.
- The restaurant was closed by inspectors after they discovered several serious breaches of basic food hygiene in the kitchen.

### 2. the study of health

noun · CEFR B2 · Academic

the area of science that studies how to stay healthy and prevent illness.

For teachers: the branch of medical science that deals with the preservation of health.

- She decided to study public hygiene to help improve her city's water system.
- Nineteenth-century advancements in the science of hygiene significantly reduced mortality rates in rapidly growing urban centres.

### 3. programming safety

noun · CEFR C2 · Technical · Slang

a way of writing code so that names of things do not get mixed up by accident.

For teachers: a property of macro expansion systems that ensures identifiers introduced by a macro do not accidentally capture identifiers in the surrounding code.

- The programmer checked the macro hygiene to make sure the variables were safe.
- Without proper hygiene in the macro system, the compiler might inadvertently shadow local variables, leading to unpredictable runtime behaviour.

Usage: Often used as an uncountable noun in the context of 'macro hygiene'.

## Examples

- Good hand hygiene is the best way to stop germs from spreading.
- The restaurant was closed by inspectors because it failed to meet basic food hygiene standards in the kitchen.
- While personal hygiene is often viewed as a private matter, it remains a critical component of public health policy in densely populated urban environments.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.