Caenorhabditis elegans(C. elegans) is a free-living soil nematode that commonly used as a biological model and recently, much work has been done using C. elegans as a toxicity model. To evaluate the acute toxicity of phenols to C. elegans, worms were subsequently exposed to nine different xenobiotics. This study described lethal toxicity, reproductive toxicity and movement inhibition using 2-propylphenol, 4-propylphenol, 2-tert-butylphenol, 3-tert-butylphenol, 4-tert-butylphenol, 2-phenylphenol, 4-phenylphenol, nonylphenol and 4-dodecylphenol to C. elegans for 24 hr or 72 hr. We found that phenols used in this study were very toxic to C. elegans. The order of lethal toxicity, reproductive toxicity and movement inhibition is as follows. 4-propylphenol > 2-phenylphenol > 2-tert-butylphenol > 2-propylphenol > nonylphenol > B-tert-butylphenol > 4-dodefylphenol > 4-tert-butylphenol > 4-phenylphenol.