vaccine

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin vaccīnus (“of cows”), from Latin vacca (“cow”).^[1][2] The word comes from variolae vaccīnae “cowpox”, the term used by Edward Jenner in his treatise of 1798,^[3][2][4] cowpox being used in early vaccination against smallpox.^[2]

The adjective is recorded in English from 1799 and the noun from 1803;^[4] the noun “matter used in vaccination” is partly from French vaccin.^[5][6]

References

1. [1] The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Boston: Houghton Mifflin
2. [1] [2] [3] Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
3. [1] Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. [1] [2] Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. [1] Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. [1] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster