booster dose

noun

plural booster doses

: a supplementary dose of a therapeutic agent designed to increase the effectiveness of one or more previously administered doses

I take 162 mg a day, as well as a booster dose of 325 mg (one regular aspirin) once every two weeks instead of my usual dose.

—Andrew Weil

especially : booster shot

Kansas providers are beginning to make plans for distributing thousands of COVID-19 booster doses, with the federal government indicating residents will begin getting those shots starting next month.

—Andrew Bahl

Examples of booster dose in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

There's also room for debate about who should receive this year's booster dose. —Beth Mole, Ars Technica, 11 Sep. 2023

Since vaccine protection fades, the CDC also recommends a booster dose at age 16. —Sara Moniuszko, CBS News, 29 Mar. 2024

The shots are often given as a booster dose every 10 years, though doctors are recommended to give them earlier when treating severe or dirty wounds and burns that can let tetanus bacteria into the body. —Alexander Tin, CBS News, 28 Feb. 2024

This included first-time doses of the vaccine for eligible jennies along with a booster dose for the initial control group for the fertility management method. —The Arizona Republic, 6 Jan. 2024

Novavax is on thin ice Novavax, the company whose corporate missteps repeatedly sidelined an effective Covid-19 vaccine, is relying on demand for booster doses to remain solvent. —Damian Garde, STAT, 1 Feb. 2024

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends a booster dose for people at elevated risk of exposure. —Discover Magazine, 9 Jan. 2024

Using medical claims records from September 2022 to March 2023, the researchers compared rates of thromboembolic events among the people in those groups that had gotten a bivalent COVID-19 booster dose and those who had only gotten the original monovalent COVID-19 vaccine in the past. —Beth Mole, Ars Technica, 12 Jan. 2024

There were 1,626 cases of myocarditis reported among more than 354 million primary doses and 37 cases of myocarditis among more than 81 million booster doses, according to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. —Mary Whitfill Roeloffs, Forbes, 13 Nov. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1940, in the meaning defined above

Medical Definition

booster dose

noun

: a supplementary dose of a therapeutic agent designed to increase the effectiveness of one or more previously administered doses

When possible, the drug [prednisone] was administered every other day, with booster doses during hemolytic crises.

—Russell E. Ware et al., The New England Journal of Medicine

especially : booster shot

… vaccines may have to receive a booster dose every five years after the original series.

—Marsha F. Goldsmith, The Journal of the American Medical Association