variolation
noun
variolation is a noun meaning “The inoculation of a person with smallpox with the intention of inducing a mild form of the illness and subsequent immunity to the disease” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled V-A-R-I-O-L-A-T-I-O-N, and it appears about once in every 98 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of variolation is variolations.
What does variolation mean?
noun
- 1
The inoculation of a person with smallpox with the intention of inducing a mild form of the illness and subsequent immunity to the disease.
Variolation is no longer used today. It was replaced by smallpox vaccination, a safer alternative, which in turn led to the development of vaccines against many other diseases.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of variolation
- variolations plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is variolation?
Variolation appears about once in every 98 million words in written English, the 317,168th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Variolation in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense inoculation with smallpox virus:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | variolisation |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does variolation come from?
From variola + -ation.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).