antidote
Americannoun
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a medicine or other remedy for counteracting the effects of poison, disease, etc.
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something that prevents or counteracts injurious or unwanted effects.
Good jobs are the best antidote to teenage crime.
verb (used with object)
noun
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med a drug or agent that counteracts or neutralizes the effects of a poison
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anything that counteracts or relieves a harmful or unwanted condition; remedy
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of antidote
1400–50; late Middle English (< Middle French ) < Latin antidotum < Greek antídoton something given against (i.e., for counteracting), equivalent to anti- anti- + dotón neuter of dotós given, verbid of didónai to give; akin to datum
Compare meaning
How does antidote compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
An antidote is a remedy that relieves. So if you get headaches from long bus rides, it's best to travel equipped with the key pain alleviating antidotes: Tylenol, lots of water and soothing music. A noun that comes all the way to us from the ancient Greek word antidoton, which means “given as a remedy,” an antidote counteracts or relieves the negative effects of something. You can find antidotes to poison, anxiety, sadness or even a bad day. People tend to think of medicinal cures when they hear the word antidote, but things like meditation, sleep, green tea, exercise or a good hug can all have positive, antidotal affects.
Vocabulary lists containing antidote
Power Prefix: Anti
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Four Power Prefixes: anti-, con-, inter-, and uni-.
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Commonly Confused Words, List 1
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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:
She approaches the net with her son Ian Foon, 4, and readies the racket to swat away water balloons — a perfect antidote to a hot summer day.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2026
Initiatives like the Stop Killing Games movement may serve as a sort of antidote.
From Salon ● Jul. 13, 2026
Consider this your antidote to the marketing speak.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026
The scene was an antidote to all that is wrong in world football; the rampant greed, the unrelenting bombast.
From BBC ● Jun. 14, 2026
“Not really. But it seems to me that if you wait around until you know you need an antidote, it’s probably too late to pick one up.”
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
This consensus is one of the strongest antidotes to civil conflict.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 1, 2025
Miller’s view is up close and personal, providing the reader with private antidotes while examining her poems and correlating them to geopolitical issues.
From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2025
American reassurances are the best antidotes to US scepticism, say analysts.
From BBC ● Jan. 7, 2024
In this light, the numerous rumors that spread in the early days of the pandemic about its origins, impacts and potential antidotes are unsurprising.
From Seattle Times ● May 12, 2023
If they got the answer wrong...Even with antidotes on hand, it would be unpleasant.
From "Throne of Glass" by Sarah J. Maas
Quia, though some water come out from thence, there never goes in any; for it is well antidoted with pot-proof armour and syrup of the vine-leaf.
From Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 1 by Motteux, Peter Anthony
But hitherto your admirable character has antidoted the poison; the detractor is despised, and every one's indignation raised against him.
From Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 3 by Richardson, Samuel
In this and some other respects Emerson is well antidoted by Carlyle, who lays the stress on the opposite qualities, and charges his hero to hold his tongue.
From Birds and Poets : with Other Papers by Burroughs, John
And had it not been that they had very well antidoted their stomach, heart, and wine-pot, which is called the noddle, they had been altogether suffocated and choked with these detestable vapours.
From Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 2 by Motteux, Peter Anthony
As civilization advances the tendency is for the average of life to lengthen, provided life does not grow so complex that knowledge is antidoted by too great artificiality.
From Maintaining Health Formerly Health and Efficiency by Alsaker, R. L.
Ordinary quick-lime, or even plaster from the walls of the house, may be stirred up in water and administered to the sufferer, as both have a distinct value in antidoting the effects of this poison.
From Health on the Farm A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene by Harris, H. F. (Henry Fauntleroy)
Mrs. Bloomer replied to Mr. Floyd through the same paper, meeting and refuting every objection, thus in a measure antidoting the poisonous influence of the senator's pronunciamento.
From History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III by Stanton, Elizabeth Cady
The mother is constantly antidoting and neutralizing the child's little troubles and discords by giving the opposite thought and applying the love-elixir.
From Pushing to the Front by Marden, Orison Swett
It is no anti-psoric, nor is it capable of antidoting the three miasms, or of inflicting medicinal diseases for life.
From Apis Mellifica or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent by Wolf, C. W.
Hunters, warriors, and lovers have occasion to call upon him, and sometimes antidoting charms are sought, when the evil effects of an enemy’s work are to be counteracted.
From The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 143-300 by Hoffman, Walter James
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.
