Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The quality or condition of being immune.
  • noun Immunology Inherited, acquired, or induced resistance to infection by a specific pathogen.
  • noun Exemption from certain generally applicable requirements of law or from certain liabilities, granted to special groups of people to facilitate the performance of their public functions.
  • noun Exemption from prosecution granted to a witness to compel him or her to give potentially self-incriminating testimony that otherwise could not be compelled because of the constitutional right against self-incrimination.
  • noun Exemption from being sued.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Exemption from obligation or responsibility in any respect, conferred by law or a sovereign act; freedom from legal liability; an exemption conferred, as from public service or charges, or from penalty for any particular act or course of conduct; hence, special privilege; liberty to do or refrain from doing any particular thing.
  • noun Exemption from any natural or usual liability.
  • noun In eccles. usage, the exemption of certain sacred places and ecclesiastical personages from secular burdens and functions, and from acts regarded as repugnant to their sanctity.
  • noun See the quotation.
  • noun In pathology, a lack or absence of susceptibility to disease. This may be either natural or acquired.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Freedom or exemption from any charge, duty, obligation, office, tax, imposition, penalty, or service; a particular privilege
  • noun Freedom; exemption.
  • noun The state of being insusceptible to disease, certain poisons, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable The state of being insusceptible to something; notably:
  • noun countable A resistance to a specific thing.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the quality of being unaffected by something
  • noun an act exempting someone
  • noun the state of not being susceptible
  • noun (medicine) the condition in which an organism can resist disease

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin immunitas, in the legal sense; the medical use was borrowed from German or French

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Examples

  • The High Court found that the expert had immunity but the Court of Appeal allowed the GMC's appeal, finding that an expert had no ­immunity from disciplinary proceedings.

    The Lawyer - Latest News 2009

  • Just as a healthy body may gain immunity from a disease by being inoculated with a mild form of it, so Christian thought was immunized against the false doctrines which threatened to destroy it, three centuries later, by its inoculation with the dying germs of Orientalism which it had encountered, and triumphed over, at Toulouse.

    Protestantism 2009

  • Just as a healthy body may gain immunity from a disease by being inoculated with a mild form of it, so Christian thought was immunized against the false doctrines which threatened to destroy it, three centuries later, by its inoculation with the dying germs of Orientalism which it had encountered, and triumphed over, at Toulouse.

    Liturgy 2009

  • In January, Greenwald reports, Olbermann delivered an unhinged rant in which he called the immunity provision a "shameless, breathless, literally textbook example of fascism" -- and in case you thought he meant the nongenocidal Italian kind, he also likened proponents of immunity to "the bureaucrats of the Third Reich."

    Fair-Weather Civil Libertarians 2008

  • It seems to us to be urgent, because the Iranians are deliberately drifting into what we call an immunity zone where practically no surgical operation could block them.

    The Independent - Frontpage RSS Feed 2012

  • "It seems to us to be urgent, because the Iranians are deliberately drifting into what we call an immunity zone where practically no surgical operation could block them," he said.

    www.startribune.com 2012

  • "It seems to us to be urgent, because the Iranians are deliberately drifting into what we call an immunity zone where practically no surgical operation could block them."

    Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph Adrian Blomfield 2012

  • United's alliance with US Airways, because it does not have antitrust immunity, is mainly promotional.

    Is United seeking 3-way deal with US Airways, Continental? 2010

  • … If it is, if it is kept up with the IAEA inspections, it gets immunity from the massive nuclear retaliation.

    Think Progress » Conservatives Falsely Claim New Obama Nuke Policy Prevents Nuclear Retaliation Against Chem/Bio Attack 2010

  • Diplomatic immunity is only granted to recognized diplomats from countries whose sovereignty have been recognized.

    Think Progress » Indiana’s ‘sovereign citizens’ renounce their U.S. citizenship, claim to secede from the Union. 2010

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