'pathogen-inhibiting' is a modern compound formed from 'pathogen' + present participle of 'inhibit'. 'Pathogen' comes from Neo-Latin/Greek elements, and 'inhibit' derives from Latin.

'pathogen' originates from Greek elements 'pathos' (suffering, disease) + '-gen' (producer), entering English via Neo-Latin in the 19th century; 'inhibit' comes from Latin 'inhibēre' (to hold in, restrain), adopted into English from Latin (via scholarly/learned usage). The compound 'pathogen-inhibiting' is a 20th/21st-century English formation used in biomedical and technical contexts.

Individually, 'pathogen' originally referred to a producer of disease and 'inhibit' meant to hold back or restrain; combined as 'pathogen-inhibiting' the meaning is specialized to 'preventing or suppressing disease-causing organisms' in contemporary scientific usage.