inactivate
Americanverb (used with object)
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to make inactive.
The bomb was inactivated.
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Immunology. to stop the activity of (certain biological substances).
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of inactivate
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Some batches did not fully inactivate the virus, and in 1955 the vaccine resulted in 10 deaths and 200 vaccine-related cases of polio paralysis.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 21, 2026
Pasteurization and proper cooking techniques inactivate the virus.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 24, 2024
Research so far has shown that virus particles end up in the milk of infected cows, but that pasteurization will inactivate the virus.
From Salon ● May 20, 2024
“The decision to inactivate comes after concerns about clinical processes and documentation were identified,” the hospital said in a statement.
From New York Times ● Apr. 29, 2024
Extracts in which no attempt was made to inactivate the enzymes present proved unsatisfactory.
From Myology and Serology of the Avian Family Fringillidae A Taxonomic Study by Stallcup, William B.
That means someone inherits two copies of an inactivated gene.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 12, 2026
Use of gene therapies becomes more challenging as patients age and grow, because treating them often requires higher doses of the inactivated viruses used to deliver the replacement genes.
From Barron's ● Nov. 25, 2025
With such vaccines, called whole-virus vaccines, a person’s immune system is presented with the whole virus, often in weakened or inactivated form.
From Salon ● Sep. 5, 2025
While some vaccines use an inactivated virus to trigger an immune response, mRNA vaccines work by teaching cells how to make proteins that can trigger an immune response.
From BBC ● Aug. 5, 2025
If a mutation inactivated even one function, the mold would be unable to grow—unless the missing ingredient was supplied back into the broth.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The ubiquitination of cGAS also marks it for destruction, effectively inactivating the sentinel once the threat of an invader has been neutralized.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 28, 2024
Phosphorylation adds a phosphate group to serine, threonine, and tyrosine residues in a protein, changing their shapes, and activating or inactivating the protein.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
Finally, there is air disinfection: inactivating viruses using ultraviolet light.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 8, 2022
Cancer geneticist Alberto Bardelli of the University of Turino and colleagues went further by deliberately inactivating a mismatch repair gene in tumor-bearing mice.
From Science Magazine ● Apr. 19, 2022
Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation, the placement of UV-C lamps in the air ducts or above dropped ceilings, is extremely effective at inactivating the coronavirus and influenza viruses and even tuberculosis bacteria.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 3, 2022
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
