acquired immunity


nounImmunology.
  1. immunity arising from exposure to antigens.

Origin of acquired immunity

1
First recorded in 1930–35

Words Nearby acquired immunity

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use acquired immunity in a sentence

  • Pack a bunch of people with no naturally acquired immunity into one building five days a week, add a child’s complete lack of boundaries and you’ve got disease soup.

    Vaccines Mandates Work, But They’re Messy | Maggie Koerth (maggie.koerth-baker@fivethirtyeight.com) | September 8, 2021 | FiveThirtyEight
  • For instance, knowing the minimum infectious dose could enable future, yet-to-be-approved challenge trials that try to test vaccine candidates, or determine whether new variants of the virus can dodge naturally acquired immunity.

  • He demonstrated that “there is but one permanent element in natural or acquired immunity, and that is phagocytosis.”

  • In many acute diseases one attack protects the patient, for a time at least, from a second attack—acquired immunity.

    Manual of Surgery | Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
  • Sometimes he had been ill but he had acquired immunity to certain poisonous plants that contained food values.

    The Wealth of Echindul | Noel Miller Loomis
  • Unprotected by hereditary or acquired immunity, he contracted tuberculosis and faded away before our eyes.

  • In other words, it has acquired immunity against this particular germ and its toxin.

    Preventable Diseases | Woods Hutchinson

British Dictionary definitions for acquired immunity

acquired immunity

noun
  1. the immunity produced by exposure of an organism to antigens, which stimulates the production of antibodies

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Scientific definitions for acquired immunity

acquired immunity

  1. Immunity that is not inherited. Acquired immunity can be active or passive.Active immunity results from the development of antibodies in response to an antigen, as from exposure to an infectious disease or through vaccination.Passive immunity results from the transmission of antibodies, as from mother to fetus through the placenta or by the injection of antiserum.

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.