vaccine

Syllables: vac·cine/vækˈsin/

vaccine adjective: of, pertaining to, caused by, or characteristic of cowpox.

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Adjective

vaccine (not comparable)

(historical) Of, pertaining to, caused by, or characteristic of cowpox.
(historical) Of or pertaining to cowpox as a source of material for vaccination against smallpox; also, of or pertaining to such material used for vaccination.
- I will call upon them: they are healthy children, we can have the vaccine infection from them, and I will inoculate the boy myself.1804, Maria Edgeworth, “To-morrow. Chapter VII. Moral Habits Seldom Changed by Change of Fortune.”, in Popular Tales, volume III, London: Printed for J[oseph] Johnson, […], [b]y C. Mercier and Co....
(archaic) Of, pertaining to, or derived from cattle.
- [M]y play could not have been written but for the work done by Sir Almroth Wright in the theory and practice of securing immunization from bacterial diseases by the inoculation of "vaccines" made of their own bacteria: a practice incorrectly called vaccinetherapy (there is nothing vaccine about it)...1906 (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “The Doctor’s Dilemma. Preface on Doctors. The Latest Theories.”, in The Doctor’s Dilemma, Getting Married, & The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet, London...
Synonyms:

bovine

Noun

vaccine (countable and uncountable, plural vaccines)

A substance given to stimulate a body's production of antibodies and provide immunity against a disease without causing the disease itself in the treatment, prepared from the agent that causes the disease (or a derivative of it; or a related, also effective, but safer disease), or a synthetic substitute; also, a dose of such a substance.
- I am much inclined to the vaccine. My friend, Mr. L—, has had all his children vaccined, and I just wait to see the effect.1804, Maria Edgeworth, “To-morrow. Chapter VII. Moral Habits Seldom Changed by Change of Fortune.”, in Popular Tales, volume III, London: Printed for J[oseph] Johnson, […], [b]y C. Mercier and Co....
- But he really ought to know the difference between a vaccine and an anti-toxin. Stimulate the phagocytes! The vaccine doesnt affect the phagocytes at all.1906 (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “The Doctor’s Dilemma”, in The Doctor’s Dilemma, Getting Married, & The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet, London: Constable and Company, published 1911, →OCLC...
The process of vaccination; immunization, inoculation.
- My dog has had two vaccines this year.
(historical) The material taken from cowpox pustules used for vaccination against smallpox.
(also, obsolete) The disease cowpox, especially as a source of material for vaccination against smallpox.
(figuratively) Something defensive or protective in nature, like a vaccine (sense 1.1).
(figuratively) A software program which protects computers against, or detects and neutralizes, computer viruses and other types of malware; an antivirus.

Verb

vaccine (third-person singular simple present vaccines, present participle vaccining, simple past and past participle vaccined)

(archaic, transitive) Synonym of vaccinate (“to treat (a person or an animal) with a vaccine to produce immunity against a disease”).
- [S]ince you have decided that the boy shall be vaccined, let us send directly for the surgeon and have it done, and then he will be safe.1804, Maria Edgeworth, “To-morrow. Chapter VII. Moral Habits Seldom Changed by Change of Fortune.”, in Popular Tales, volume III, London: Printed for J[oseph] Johnson, […], [b]y C. Mercier and Co....
Synonyms:

immunize, inoculate, vaccinate

vaccine meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

vaccine in Hindi

substance given to stimulate a body’s production of antibodies and provide immunity against a disease: वैक्सीन vaiksīn, टीका ṭīkā

vaccine in Tamil

தடுமருந்து, தடுப்பூசி, அம்மைப் பால், தடுப்பு மருந்து, முடச்சில், பால்

vaccine in Marathi

substance given to stimulate a body’s production of antibodies and provide immunity against a disease: लस las

vaccine in Urdu

substance given to stimulate a body’s production of antibodies and provide immunity against a disease: ویکسین vaiksīn, ٹیکا ṭīkā, ٹیکہ ṭīka, حفاظتی ٹیکا hifāzatī-ṭīkā, حفاظتی ٹیکہ hifāzatī-ṭīka

More languagesFewer languages

vaccine in Bengali: ভ্যাক্সিন bhêkśin, টীকা ṭika
vaccine in Telugu: వ్యాక్సిన్ vyāksin, వ్యాక్సీన్ vyāksīn, టీకా ṭīkā
vaccine in Malayalam: വാക്സിൻ vāksiṉ, പ്രതിരോധമരുന്ന് pratirōdhamarunnŭ
vaccine in Kannada: ಲಸಿಕೆ lasike
vaccine in Punjabi: ਟੀਕਾ
vaccine in Gujarati: રસી rasī
vaccine in Sinhala: එන්නත්
vaccine in Assamese: ছিটা sita, টিকা tika
vaccine in Nepali: खोप
vaccine in Pashto: واکسين wāksin
vaccine in Tagalog: bakuna
vaccine in Arabic: لَقَاح laqāḥ
vaccine in Malay: vaksin, benih cacar, pelali, tampang cacar
vaccine in Indonesian: vaksin
vaccine in Persian: واکسن vâksan
vaccine in Thai: วัคซีน wák-siin
vaccine in Vietnamese: vắc-xin, chủng ngừa, kháng nguyên
vaccine in Myanmar: ကာကွယ်ဆေး ka-kwaihce:
Dhivehi: ވެކްސިން vek̊sin̊

Examples of vaccine in a sentence

She's in the camp that speaks as if all vaccines were poisons.
When they added up the vaccine doses from all known and anticipate sources, they didn't have enough.
Some argue that vaccines are a form of mithridatism; this is generally considered incorrect.

All 40 example sentences with vaccine

Synonyms of vaccine

Forms of vaccine

Noun
plural	vaccines
Verb
third-person singular present	vaccines
present participle	vaccining
past participle	vaccined
past	vaccined

Plural of vaccine: vaccines

Origin of vaccine

Learned borrowing from Latin vaccīnus (“of or derived from a cow”), from vacca (“cow (female cattle)”) + -īnus (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives). Sense 1 refers to the early use of the cowpox virus as a vaccination against smallpox: see New Latin variolae vaccīnae (“cowpox”, plural, literally “infectious diseases of cattle causing pustules”), coined by the British physician and scientist Edward Jenner (1749–1823).

The noun is probably partly: * derived from vaccine (adjective) (see etymology 1); and * borrowed from French vaccine (“cowpox (short for variole vaccine); vaccination against smallpox using material from cowpox”), vaccin (“cowpox material used for smallpox vaccination”), both noun uses of vaccin (adjective), from Latin vaccīnus (see etymology 1). The verb is derived from the noun. Cognates * Italian vaccina * Portuguese vacina * Spanish vacuna

Phrases with vaccine

Words that rhyme with vaccine

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about vaccine

What does vaccine mean?: Vaccine means of, pertaining to, caused by, or characteristic of cowpox.
What is vaccine in Hindi?: Vaccine in Hindi is वैक्सीन (vaiksīn), टीका (ṭīkā). See Vaccine meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is vaccine?: Vaccine can be an adjective, a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce vaccine?: Vaccine is pronounced /vækˈsin/ (US).

Words near vaccine in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: vaccine (page history and authors); vaccine (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); vaccine (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); vaccine (Sinhala Wiktionary) (page history and authors); vaccine (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-vaccine.ogg.

Cite this entry: “vaccine.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/vaccine. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.