vaccine

UK:*UK and possibly other pronunciationsUK and possibly other pronunciations/ˈvæksiːn/

US:USA pronunciation: IPAUSA pronunciation: IPA/vækˈsin/

US:USA pronunciation: respellingUSA pronunciation: respelling(vak sēn′ or, esp. Brit., vak′sēn, -sin)



WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2023
vac•cine /vækˈsin/USA pronunciation   n. [countable]
  1. Immunologya preparation introduced into the body to prevent a disease by causing the body to produce antibodies against it, usually a weakened substance containing the virus causing the disease against which the body can react.
  2. Computinga software program that helps to protect against computer viruses.

WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2023
vac•cine  (vak sēn′ or, esp. Brit., vak′sēn, -sin),USA pronunciation n. 
  1. Immunologyany preparation used as a preventive inoculation to confer immunity against a specific disease, usually employing an innocuous form of the disease agent, as killed or weakened bacteria or viruses, to stimulate antibody production.
  2. Microbiologythe virus of cowpox, used in vaccination, obtained from pox vesicles of a cow or person.
  3. Computinga software program that helps to protect against computer viruses, as by detecting them and warning the user.

adj. 
  1. of or pertaining to vaccination.
  2. of or pertaining to vaccinia.
  3. of, pertaining to, or derived from cows.
  • Neo-Latin (variolae) vaccīnae cowpox (in title of English. Jenner's treatise of 1798), equivalent. to vacc(a) cow + -īnae, feminine plural of -īnus -ine1

Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::
vaccine /ˈvæksiːn/ n
  1. a suspension of dead, attenuated, or otherwise modified microorganisms (viruses, bacteria, or rickettsiae) for inoculation to produce immunity to a disease by stimulating the production of antibodies
  2. (originally) a preparation of the virus of cowpox taken from infected cows and inoculated in humans to produce immunity to smallpox
  3. (modifier) of or relating to vaccination or vaccinia
  4. a piece of software designed to detect and remove computer viruses from a system
Etymology: 18th Century: from New Latin variolae vaccīnae cowpox, title of medical treatise (1798) by Edward Jenner, from Latin vacca a cow
'vaccine' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):
BCG - BCG vaccine - DPT - Hib - Jenner - MMR - Sabin - Sabin vaccine - Salk - Salk vaccine - TAB - Theiler - bacillus Calmette-Guérin - bacterin - biological - booster dose - cowberry - point - polio vaccine - polyvalent - preventive - protection - provaccine - race - sabin - seroconvert - shot - unit - vaccinal - vaccinate - vaccination - vaccine point - vaccinia - vaccinization - victory
In Lists: Biology, more...
Collocations: get a [flu, rabies, malaria, polio, smallpox] vaccine, a vaccine to [prevent, protect, eliminate, stop], [create, develop, come up with, work on] a (new) vaccine, more...

Forum discussions with the word(s) "vaccine" in the title:


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