Word.ws English Dictionary

variolation

variolation noun: the inoculation of a person with smallpox with the intention of inducing a mild form of the illness and subsequent immunity to the disease.

Noun

variolation (countable and uncountable, plural variolations)

  1. (historical) The inoculation of a person with smallpox with the intention of inducing a mild form of the illness and subsequent immunity to the disease.
    • Variolation is no longer used today. It was replaced by smallpox vaccination, a safer alternative, which in turn led to the development of vaccines against many other diseases.
    • To accomplish this, variolation—the use of the smallpox virus—was introduced into military conscription. The practice of variolation that was later routinized in the Qing dynasty was basically a form of vaccination against smallpox.2005, Eric A. Croddy, James J. Wirtz, editors, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Volume I, ABC-CLIO, page 310

variolation meaning in Hindi, Tamil and Persian

variolation in Hindi

variolation
टीका ṭīkā

variolation in Tamil

அம்மைக் குத்தீடு, அம்மைப்பால் குத்துதல்

variolation in Persian

inoculation with smallpox virus
آبلهکوبی âbele-kôbi

Forms of variolation

pluralvariolations

Origin of variolation

From variola + -ation.

Questions about variolation

What does variolation mean?
Variolation means the inoculation of a person with smallpox with the intention of inducing a mild form of the illness and subsequent immunity to the disease.
What is variolation in Hindi?
Variolation in Hindi is टीका (ṭīkā). See Variolation meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is variolation?
Variolation is a noun.
What is the plural of variolation?
The plural of variolation is variolations.

Words near variolation in the dictionary

  1. variolas
  2. variolate
  3. variolated
  4. variolates
  5. variolating
  6. variolation
  7. variolations
  8. variolator
  9. variolators
  10. variole
  11. varioles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: variolation (page history and authors); टीका (Hindi) (page history and authors); variolation (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). 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.

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