Etymologies 163, English: Etymology and Word Origin of the Word “vaccine”
Michael D. Powers, Ph.D., USCCI
![Michael D. Powers, Ph.D., USCCI]()
Michael D. Powers, Ph.D., USCCI
US Certified Court Interpreter 1980 / Ph.D. Spanish Portuguese 1981 / 24 years university professor / Estimates: 12,000+ depositions, hearings, etc. / 850 trials / 3000 documents / Conference Interpreter 650 conferences
Vaccine
This is copied from the Merriam-Webster unabridged dictionary.
noun
vac·cine?vak-?sēn??
?vak-?sēn
pluralvaccines
1:?a preparation that is administered (as by injection) to stimulate the body's?immune response?against a specific infectious agent or disease: such as
a:?an antigenic preparation of a typically inactivated or attenuated (see?ATTENUATED?sense 2) pathogenic agent (such as a bacterium or virus) or one of its components or products (such as a protein or toxin)
a?trivalent?influenza?vaccine
oral polio?vaccine
Many?vaccines?are made from the virus itself, either weakened or killed, which will induce antibodies to bind and kill a live virus. Measles?vaccines?are just that, weakened (or attenuated) measles viruses.—Ann Finkbeiner et al.
… a tetanus toxoid-containing?vaccine?might be recommended for wound management in a pregnant woman if [greater than or equal to] 5 years have elapsed … .—Mark Sawyer et al.
In addition the subunit used in a?vaccine?must be carefully chosen, because not all components of a pathogen represent beneficial immunological targets.—Thomas J. Matthews and Dani P. Bolognesi
b:?a preparation of genetic material (such as a strand of synthesized?messenger RNA) that is used by the cells of the body to produce an antigenic substance (such as a fragment of virus?spike protein)
… Moderna's coronavirus?vaccine?… works by injecting a small piece of mRNA from the coronavirus that codes for the virus' spike protein. …?mRNA vaccine?spurs the body to produce the spike protein internally. That, in turn, triggers an immune response.—Susie Neilson et al.
The revolutionary?messenger RNA vaccines?that are now available have been over a decade in development. … Messenger RNA enters the cell cytoplasm and produces protein from the spike of the Covid-19 virus.—Thomas F. Cozza
Viral?vector vaccines, another recent type of?vaccine, are similar to DNA and RNA?vaccines, but the virus's genetic information is housed in an attenuated virus (unrelated to the disease-causing virus) that helps to promote host cell fusion and entry.—Priya Kaur
NOTE:?Vaccines may contain?adjuvants?(such as aluminum hydroxide) designed to enhance the strength and duration of the body's immune response.
2:?a preparation or immunotherapy that is used to stimulate the body's immune response against noninfectious substances, agents, or diseases
The U.S. Army is also testing a ricin?vaccine?and has reported success in mice.—Sue Goetinck Ambrose
… many of the most promising new cancer?vaccines?use dendritic cells to train the immune system to recognize tumor cells.—Patrick Barry
vaccine?adjective
Examples of?vaccine?in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web There are also two RSV?vaccines?available for adults 60 and older.—Dr. Jade Cobern,?ABC News, 23 Nov. 2023Here are some of the most important changes to the adult?vaccine?schedule in 2024.—Stephanie Brown,?Verywell Health, 23 Nov. 2023
The first?vaccine?for RSV was approved in May and was targeted for older adults.—Karen Garcia,?Los Angeles Times, 22 Nov. 2023
This similarity suggests that the?vaccine?could offer at least some protection against gonorrhea.—Meghana Keshavan,?STAT, 13 Nov. 2023
That goal is known as a universal influenza?vaccine.—Maryn McKenna,?WIRED, 10 Nov. 2023The case became moot while on appeal because Congress repealed the?vaccine?mandate, his attorney in the case, Donald Falk, said.—Marlene Lenthang,?NBC News, 3 Nov. 2023
Yes, earlier this year, two?vaccines, Abrysvo and Arexvy were approved for adults over 60.—Allison Futterman,?Discover Magazine, 3 Nov. 2023
As of May of this year, only 56 percent of the state's population had completed a primary series of COVID-19?vaccines.—Beth Mole,?Ars Technica, 2 Nov. 2023
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These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'vaccine.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.?Send us feedback?about these examples.
Word History
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Etymology
earlier, "fluid from cowpox pustules used in inoculation," noun use of?vaccine?"of cowpox" (in the phrases?vaccine disease, vaccine matter), borrowed from New Latin?vaccina?(in?variolae vaccinae?"cowpox"), going back to Latin, feminine of?vaccīnus?"of or from a cow," from?vacca?"cow" (perhaps akin to Sanskrit?va?ā?"cow") +?-īnus?-INE?entry?1; in extended sense, "preparation of organisms administered to produce immunity," in part borrowed from French?vaccin, masculine derivative of?vaccine?"cowpox, matter from cowpox pustules," borrowed from New Latin or English
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First Known Use
1882, in the meaning defined at?sense 1
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“Vaccine.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vaccine. Accessed 2 Dec. 2023.
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Howard Markel wrote an interesting article on November 2, 2015, entitled “The Origin of the Word ‘Vaccine’” for ScienceFriday.com. This is what follows.
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The word vaccine, and vaccination, actually comes from the name for a pox virus—the cowpox virus,?vaccinia, to be exact.?But why did this wonderful tool of immunization, which constitutes one of the “greatest hits” in the entire history of medicine, get its name from a virus that attacks cows?
The?Oxford English Dictionary?credits the French for coining the term vaccine in 1800 and vaccination in 1803 (although there are cognates in Italian,?vaccine, Portuguese,?vacina, and Spanish,?vacuna). According to an?article?in the?British Medical Journal, however, the term was used as an adjective in 1799 by British general practitioner Dr. Edward Jenner (and the noun?vaccination?introduced by his friend Richard Dunning in 1800).
Indeed, when talking about vaccines of any kind, it is essential to start the discussion with the work of Jenner (1749 to 1823), who hailed from Gloucestershire, England. In?the late 18th century, while making his rounds, Jenner made a stunning observation: Milkmaids infected with cowpox, which manifested itself as a series of pustules on the hands and forearms, were immune to the smallpox epidemics that regularly attacked the residents of his parish. (Many different animal species have their own poxvirus, hence smallpox—variola virus—for humans, cowpox for cows, and so on). Legend has it that Jenner first heard of this phenomenon in the late 1770s from a Bristol milkmaid who boasted, “I shall never have smallpox for I have had cowpox. I shall never have an ugly pockmarked face.”
Jenner made history in 1796 when he gave a patient what became known as the first “vaccinia?vaccine”—that is, a vaccine made from the cowpox virus. In a manner contemporary readers might find disgusting, the doctor took pus from the cowpox lesions on a milkmaid’s hands and introduced that fluid into a cut he made in the arm of an 8-year-old boy named James Phipps.
Six weeks later, Jenner exposed the boy to smallpox, but Master Phipps did not develop the infection, then or on 20 subsequent exposures to the dreaded disease. Indeed, Phipps later married, had two children, and lived long enough to attend Jenner’s funeral in 1823. (Phipps died at the age of 65.)
Between 1796 and 1798, Jenner collected 23 cases of people infected or inoculated with cowpox virus. In a 1798 report,?Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, A Disease Discovered in Some of the Western Counties of England, which Jenner published at his own expense, he concluded “that the cowpox protects the human constitution from the infection of smallpox.” It was a groundbreaking conclusion that set the fields of immunology, vaccine therapy, and preventive health in motion.
Before Jenner developed his method, many doctors immunized patients against smallpox by means of?variolation?(the controlled transfer of pus from one person’s active smallpox lesion to another person’s arm, usually subcutaneously with a lancet).?The beauty of Jenner’s newer method of vaccinating with the cowpox virus was that it was not only effective—it also had far fewer side effects and was much safer.
Jenner’s vaccination soon became the major means of preventing smallpox around the world. In 1801 President Thomas Jefferson declared smallpox vaccination one of the nation’s first public health priorities. A few years later, he instructed Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to take doses of smallpox vaccine on their expedition to the Pacific.
Almost a century after Jenner developed his technique, in 1885, the great Louis Pasteur of Paris tested what he called a “rabies vaccine,” even though the parlance of the time was such that “vaccine” or “vaccination” specifically meant administering cowpox pus into a human being in order to prevent that person from contracting smallpox. In fact, Pasteur actually produced a rabies antitoxin, which served as an antidote once someone contracted rabies. Nevertheless, he appropriated the word?vaccine, permanently stretching its meaning beyond its Latin word associations with cows and cowpox virus.
In a way, then, it was the global influence of Louis Pasteur that led to the expansion of the term vaccine to include a long list of “elixirs” of sorts containing live, attenuated (that is, less virulent than the natural variety), or killed bacteria or viruses, which are typically given in the form of an injection, to produce immunity against a particular infectious disease.
As for smallpox, thanks to a massive vaccine campaign by the World Health Organization, the disease was eradicated from the planet in 1980.
This success inspires the following medical advice to everyone, but especially children: Make sure all your vaccinations are up to date!
Translator/Proofreader and Consecutive Interpreter - French (native), Spanish, English
1 年I know the word origin more than 20 years ago, but it's a good refresher.