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Webster 1913 Edition


Inoculate

In-oc′u-late

,
Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Inoculated
;
p. pr. & vb. n.
Inoculating
.]
[L.
inoculatus
, p. p. of
inoculare
to ingraft; pref.
in-
in, on +
oculare
to furnish with eyes, fr.
oculus
an eye, also, a bud. See
Ocular
.]
1.
To bud; to insert, or graft, as the bud of a tree or plant in another tree or plant.
2.
To insert a foreign bud into;
as, to
inoculate
a tree
.
4.
Fig.: To introduce into the mind; – used especially of harmful ideas or principles; to imbue;
as, to
inoculate
one with treason or infidelity
.

In-oc′u-late

,
Verb.
I.
1.
To graft by inserting buds.
2.
To communicate disease by inoculation.

Webster 1828 Edition


Inoculate

INOC'ULATE

,
Verb.
T.
[L. inoculo; in and occulus, the eye.]
1.
To bud; to insert the bud of a tree or plant in another tree or plant, for the purpose of growth on the new stock. All sorts of stone fruit, apples,pears, &c. may be inoculated. We inoculate the stock with a foreign bud.
2.
To communicate a disease to a person by inserting infectious matter in his skin or flesh; as, to inoculate a person with the matter of small pox or cow pox. When the latter disease is communicated, it is called vaccination.

INOC'ULATE

,
Verb.
I.
To propagate by budding; to practice inoculation. The time to inoculate is when the buds are formed at the extremities of the same year's shoot, indicating that the spring growth for that season is complete.

Definition 2024


inoculate

inoculate

English

Alternative forms

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 the body to produce immunity to a specific disease. [from a. 1722]
    • 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.
  2. (transitive, by extension) To safeguard or protect something as if by inoculation.
  3. To add one substance to another; to spike.
    The culture medium was inoculated with selenium to investigate the rate of uptake.
  4. To graft by inserting buds. [from c. 1420]
    to inoculate the bud of one tree or plant into another
    to inoculate a tree
  5. (figuratively) To introduce into the mind (used especially of harmful ideas or principles); to imbue. [from a. 1600]
    to inoculate someone with treason or infidelity
    • 1599-1602, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, scene 1, line 118:
      virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it

Related terms

See also

Translations

External links

  • inoculate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
  • inoculate in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

Italian

Verb

inoculate

  1. second-person plural present indicative of inoculare
  2. second-person plural imperative of inoculare
  3. feminine plural of inoculato

Anagrams


Latin

Verb

inoculāte

  1. second-person plural present active imperative of inoculō