Meaning & use

inoculate

verb·Academic

To protect a person, animal, or plant against disease by introducing a vaccine or weakened form of a pathogen.

See it in a sentence

The clinic inoculated hundreds of children against measles during the campaign.

Farmers routinely inoculate young seedlings against common fungal infections before transplanting them outdoors.

A note on using this word

'Inoculate' takes one 'n' and one 'c'; it is often confused with 'vaccinate,' though the two are used almost interchangeably today.

Words with a similar meaning

vaccinateimmunize

Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.

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