immunise

The word 'immunise' is built upon the Latin adjective immunis, which originally meant 'exempt from public service or burden' (from in- 'not' + munis 'ready for service'). This legal concept of exemption was metaphorically extended to the biological realm to mean 'exempt from disease'. The verb was formed in English during the 19th century by appending the productive suffix '-ise', which means 'to make or cause to be'. Thus, the literal construction 'to make exempt/safe' perfectly captures the modern medical procedure of administering a vaccine to render an organism resistant to a specific infectious disease.

Structure: immun (safe, exempt) + ise (verb-forming suffix) - immun: From Latin immunis, meaning 'exempt from public service, free, safe'. In this word, it functions as the core root conveying the concept of protection or exemption. - ise: A verb-forming suffix of Greek origin via Latin and French, used to indicate 'to render, to make, to become'.