inoculate

Verb

inoculate (third-person singular simple present inoculates, present participle inoculating, simple past and past participle inoculated)

1. (transitive) 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...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...
   • 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 October 29, Marco R. Della Cava, “Vaccine shortage pricks tempers”, in Statesman Journal, volume 152, number 214, Salem, OR, page 2A

   Synonyms:

   immunize, vaccinate, vaccine

2. (broadly, transitive) To safeguard or protect something as if by inoculation.
   • Her upbringing overseas inoculated her against prejudice.
   • This made it possible for them to enjoy the media without personally changing their views in ways that they believed it changed the views of others. In a sense, they believed that their religion inoculated them against the media's negative effects.2005 October 27, Lynn Schofield Clark, From Angels to Aliens: Teenagers, the Media, and the Supernatural, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 20
3. (transitive) To add one substance to another.
   • The culture medium was inoculated with selenium to investigate the rate of uptake.

   Synonyms:

   spike

4. (transitive) To graft by inserting buds.
   • to inoculate the bud of one tree or plant into another
   • to inoculate a tree
5. (figuratively, transitive) To introduce into the mind (used especially of harmful ideas or principles).
   • to inoculate someone with treason or infidelity
   • You ſhould not haue beleeu'd me, for vertue cannot ſo e[n]oculat our old ſtock, but vve ſhall reliſh of it, I loued you not.c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: […] I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604...

   Synonyms:

   imbue, implant

Noun

UK/ɪˈnɒkjulɪt/US/ɪˈnɑːkjulɪt/

inoculate (plural inoculates)

1. Synonym of inoculum.

   Synonyms:

   inoculum