Inoculators

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person or device that administers vaccines or inoculations to individuals for the purpose of preventing disease
2. An individual skilled in the practice of introducing a vaccine or pathogen to stimulate immunity in a host
3. A specialist who performs the act of inoculating a person or animal to enhance their resistance against infections

Etymology: "Inoculators" is the plural of "inoculator," so it names more than one person who carries out inoculation. The noun traces back to Latin, where the verb "inoculare" meant to graft a bud or shoot into a plant by inserting it into a cut, from "in" (into) and "oculus" (eye, bud). Gardeners used the image of an eye, or bud, set into another stock, and the same picture carried over into medicine. The medical sense arrived through French, which has "inoculateur" as its counterpart, and it was applied to deliberately passing infectious material into a living body to produce immunity. English borrowed the sense and the agent noun that goes with it, so an inoculator is the person doing the work, while "inoculation" names the act itself.