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inoculate

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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English

WOTD – 12 November 2015

Alternative forms

Etymology 1

First attested in c. 1440; inherited from Middle English inoculaten (“to graft”), from Latin inoculātus, perfect passive participle of inoculō (“to ingraft an eye or bud of one plant into (another), implant”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from in- (“in”) + oculus (“an eye”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix).

Pronunciation

Verb

inoculate (third-person singular simple present inoculates, present participle inoculating, simple past and past participle inoculated)

  1. (transitive, immunology) To introduce an antigenic substance or vaccine into something (e.g. the body) or someone, such as to produce immunity to a specific disease. [from c. 1722]
    Synonyms: immunize, vaccinate, (archaic) vaccine
    • 1722, John Crawford, The Case of Inoculating the Small-pox Consider'd: And Its Advantages Asserted; in a Review of Dr. Wagstaffe's Letter. Wherein Every Thing that Author Has Advanced Against It, is Fully Confuted: and Inoculation Proved a Safe, Beneficial, and Laudable Practice.:
      But you would not willingly thus give up the Cause; therefore endeavour to draw others into your Assistance, and venture to assert, that by the Account Dr. Nettleton gives, as also by the best Observation upon those who have been Inoculated in this City, scarcely a fourth part of them have had a true and genuine Small Pox.
    • 2004 October 29, Marco R. Della Cava, “Vaccine shortage pricks tempers”, in Statesman Journal, volume 152, number 214, Salem, OR, page 2A:
      The sense that it takes outrageous fortune to get inoculated echoes here in the Bay Area, where pharmacies have canceled flu-shot clinics, doctors turn away pleading patients and health officials are reduced to telling panicked callers that they should practice good personal hygiene.
  2. (transitive, by extension) To safeguard or protect something as if by inoculation.
    (Can we add an example for this sense?)
  3. (transitive) To add one substance to another.
    Synonym: spike
    The culture medium was inoculated with selenium to investigate the rate of uptake.
  4. (transitive) To graft by inserting buds. [from c. 1420]
    to inoculate the bud of one tree or plant into another
    to inoculate a tree
    • c. 1420, anonymous author, edited by Barton Lodge, On husbondrie‎, Published for the Early English Text Society, by N. Trübner & Co., translation of original by Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus Palladius, published 1872:
      And in Aprill figtreen inoculate
  5. (figurative, transitive) To introduce into the mind (used especially of harmful ideas or principles). [from a. 1600]
    Synonyms: imbue, implant
    to inoculate someone with treason or infidelity
Derived terms
Translations
See also

Etymology 2

Back-formation from inoculation, see -ate (noun-forming suffix).

Pronunciation

Noun

inoculate (plural inoculates)

  1. Synonym of inoculum.

Further reading

Anagrams

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Italian

Etymology 1

Verb

inoculate

  1. inflection of inoculare:
    1. second-person plural present indicative
    2. second-person plural imperative

Etymology 2

Participle

inoculate f pl

  1. feminine plural of inoculato

Anagrams

Latin

Verb

inoculāte

  1. second-person plural present active imperative of inoculō

Spanish

Verb

inoculate

  1. second-person singular voseo imperative of inocular combined with te

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