Wiktionary

vaccine

See also: vacciné

English

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WOTD – 26 January 2023

Etymology 1

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PIE word
*woḱéh₂
 
Vials of a vaccine (noun sense 1.1) against COVID-19.

Learned borrowing from Latin vaccīnus (“of or derived from a cow”), from vacca (“cow (female cattle)”) + -īnus (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives). Sense 1 refers to the early use of the cowpox virus as a vaccination against smallpox: see New Latin variolae vaccīnae (“cowpox”, plural, literally “infectious diseases of cattle causing pustules”), coined by the British physician and scientist Edward Jenner (1749–1823).[1][2]

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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vaccine (not comparable)

  1. (historical)
    1. (medicine) Of, pertaining to, caused by, or characteristic of cowpox.
    2. (immunology) Of or pertaining to cowpox as a source of material for vaccination against smallpox; also, of or pertaining to such material used for vaccination.
      • 1804, Maria Edgeworth, “To-morrow. Chapter VII. Moral Habits Seldom Changed by Change of Fortune.”, in Popular Tales, volume III, London: Printed for J[oseph] Johnson, […], [b]y C. Mercier and Co., […], →OCLC, page 389:
        I will call upon them: they are healthy children, we can have the vaccine infection from them, and I will inoculate the boy myself.
  2. (archaic) Of, pertaining to, or derived from cattle.
    Synonym: bovine
    • 1906 (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “The Doctor’s Dilemma. Preface on Doctors. The Latest Theories.”, in The Doctor’s Dilemma, Getting Married, & The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet, London: Constable and Company, published 1911, →OCLC, pages lxxxviii–lxxxxix:
      [M]y play could not have been written but for the work done by Sir Almroth Wright in the theory and practice of securing immunization from bacterial diseases by the inoculation of "vaccines" made of their own bacteria: a practice incorrectly called vaccinetherapy (there is nothing vaccine about it) apparently because it is what vaccination ought to be and is not.
Translations
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Etymology 2

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The noun is probably partly:[3]

  • derived from vaccine (adjective) (see etymology 1); and
  • borrowed from French vaccine (“cowpox (short for variole vaccine); vaccination against smallpox using material from cowpox”), vaccin (“cowpox material used for smallpox vaccination”), both noun uses of vaccin (adjective), from Latin vaccīnus (see etymology 1).

The verb is derived from the noun.[4]

cognates

Pronunciation

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Noun

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vaccine (countable and uncountable, plural vaccines)

  1. (immunology)
    1. A substance given to stimulate a body's production of antibodies and provide immunity against a disease without causing the disease itself in the treatment, prepared from the agent that causes the disease (or a derivative of it; or a related, also effective, but safer disease), or a synthetic substitute; also, a dose of such a substance.
      • 1804, Maria Edgeworth, “To-morrow. Chapter VII. Moral Habits Seldom Changed by Change of Fortune.”, in Popular Tales, volume III, London: Printed for J[oseph] Johnson, […], [b]y C. Mercier and Co., […], →OCLC, page 387:
        I am much inclined to the vaccine. My friend, Mr. L—, has had all his children vaccined, and I just wait to see the effect.
      • 1906 (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “The Doctor’s Dilemma”, in The Doctor’s Dilemma, Getting Married, & The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet, London: Constable and Company, published 1911, →OCLC, Act I, page 28:
        But he really ought to know the difference between a vaccine and an anti-toxin. Stimulate the phagocytes! The vaccine doesnt affect the phagocytes at all.
      • 2022 June 16, Soo-Hyang Choi, Hyonhee Shin, “North Korea faces infectious disease outbreak amid COVID battle”, in Lincoln Feast, editor, Reuters‎[1], archived from the original on 16 June 2022:
        South Korea is willing to cooperate with the North to tackle the disease outbreak, but Pyongyang remains unresponsive to any offers for dialogue, including Seoul's earlier proposal to provide COVID vaccines, said another official at the unification ministry.
        South Hwanghae Province, where Haeju is located, is North Korea's key agricultural region, raising concerns over possible impacts on the country's already dire food shortage.
    2. The process of vaccination; immunization, inoculation.
      My dog has had two vaccines this year.
    3. (historical) material taken from cowpox pustules used for vaccination against smallpox.
    4. (also medicine, obsolete) The disease cowpox, especially as a source of material for vaccination against smallpox.
  2. (figuratively)
    1. Something defensive or protective in nature, like a vaccine (sense 1.1).
    2. (computing) A software program which protects computers against, or detects and neutralizes, computer viruses and other types of malware; an antivirus.
Derived terms
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Translations
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See also
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Verb

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vaccine (third-person singular simple present vaccines, present participle vaccining, simple past and past participle vaccined)

  1. (transitive, archaic) Synonym of vaccinate (“to treat (a person or an animal) with a vaccine to produce immunity against a disease”)
    Synonyms: immunize, inoculate
    • 1804, Maria Edgeworth, “To-morrow. Chapter VII. Moral Habits Seldom Changed by Change of Fortune.”, in Popular Tales, volume III, London: Printed for J[oseph] Johnson, […], [b]y C. Mercier and Co., […], →OCLC, page 388:
      [S]ince you have decided that the boy shall be vaccined, let us send directly for the surgeon and have it done, and then he will be safe.
Translations
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References

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  1. ^ Edward Jenner (1798) An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolæ Vaccinæ; a Disease Discovered in Some of the Western Counties of England, particularly Gloucestershire, and Known by the Name of the Cow Pox, London: […] Sampson Low, […] and sold by Law, […]; and Murray and Highley, […], →OCLC.
  2. ^ “vaccine, adj.”, in OED Online  ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2022.
  3. ^ “vaccine, n.”, in OED Online  ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2022; “vaccine, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  4. ^ “vaccine, v.”, in OED Online  ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2022.

Further reading

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Danish

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Noun

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vaccine c (singular definite vaccinen, plural indefinite vacciner)

  1. vaccine

Declension

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Declension of vaccine
common
gender 		Singular Plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative vaccine vaccinen vacciner vaccinerne
genitive vaccines vaccinens vacciners vaccinernes
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References

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French

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Pronunciation

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Verb

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vaccine

  1. inflection of vacciner:
    1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
    2. second-person singular imperative

Italian

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Adjective

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vaccine f pl

  1. feminine plural of vaccino

Anagrams

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Romanian

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Noun

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vaccine

  1. plural of vaccină
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