inoculate

Etymology

From Middle English inoculate, from Latin inoculātus, perfect passive participle of inoculō (“ingraft an eye or bud of one plant into (another), implant”), from in (“in”) + oculus (“an eye”).

verb

1. (transitive, immunology) To introduce an antigenic substance or vaccine into something (e.g. the body) or someone, such as to produce immunity to a specific disease.
   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. 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.
   The sense that it takes outrageous fortune to get inoculated echoes here in the Bay Area, where pharmacies have canceled flu-shot clinics, doctors turn away pleading patients and health officials are reduced to telling panicked callers that they should practice good personal hygiene. 2004-10-29, Marco R. Della Cava, “Vaccine shortage pricks tempers”, in Statesman Journal, volume 152, number 214, Salem, OR, page 2A
2. (transitive, by extension) To safeguard or protect something as if by inoculation.
3. To add one substance to another.
   The culture medium was inoculated with selenium to investigate the rate of uptake.
4. To graft by inserting buds.
   to inoculate the bud of one tree or plant into another
   to inoculate a tree
   And in Aprill figtreen inoculate c. 1420, anonymous author, edited by Barton Lodge, On husbondrie, Published for the Early English Text Society, by N. Trübner & Co., translation of original by Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus Palladius, published 1872
5. (figurative) To introduce into the mind (used especially of harmful ideas or principles).
   to inoculate someone with treason or infidelity
   The Church tries to inoculate humanity with the imaginary goodness drawn down from a fabulous heaven, and from a priest-manufactured God. 1860, John Watts, The Christian Doctrine of Man's Depravity Refuted, Watts & Company, page 14

noun

1. Synonym of inoculum