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vacuolate
vacuole
vacuous
vacuum
vacuum bottle
vacuum brake
vacuum cleaner
vacuum distillation
vacuum drying
vacuum flask
vacuum forming
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vaccine

vac·cine [ vak sn, vák sn ] (plural vac·cines)


noun 
Definition:
 
1. inoculation: a preparation containing weakened or dead microbes of the kind that cause a disease, administered to stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies against that disease

2. protective software: a software program that protects a system against a computer virus

[Late 18th century. < Latin vaccinus "of a cow" < vacca "cow," because originally the cowpox virus used to prevent smallpox]

Word History

Vaccine was used by the British physician Edward Jenner at the end of the 18th century in the terms vaccine disease, meaning "cowpox," and hence vaccine inoculation, meaning the technique he developed of preventing smallpox by injecting people with cowpox virus. There is no evidence of the use of vaccine as a noun to denote the inoculated material until the 1840s.

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