medicine
Americannoun
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medicines
plural
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any substance or substances used in treating disease or illness; medicament; remedy.
- Synonyms:
- physic, pharmaceutical, drug, medication
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the art or science of restoring or preserving health or due physical condition, as by means of drugs, surgical operations or appliances, or manipulations: often divided into medicine proper, surgery, and obstetrics.
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the art or science of treating disease with drugs or curative substances, as distinguished from surgery and obstetrics.
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the medical profession.
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(among North American Indians) any object or practice regarded as having magical powers.
verb (used with object)
idioms
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give someone a dose / taste of his / her own medicine, to repay or punish a person for an injury by use of the offender's own methods.
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take one's medicine, to undergo or accept punishment, especially deserved punishment.
He took his medicine like a man.
noun
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any drug or remedy for use in treating, preventing, or alleviating the symptoms of disease
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the science of preventing, diagnosing, alleviating, or curing disease
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any nonsurgical branch of medical science
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the practice or profession of medicine
he's in medicine
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something regarded by primitive people as having magical or remedial properties
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to accept a deserved punishment
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an unpleasant experience in retaliation for and by similar methods to an unkind or aggressive act
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The scientific study or practice of diagnosing, treating, and preventing diseases or disorders of the body or mind of a person or animal.
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An agent, such as a drug, used to treat disease or injury.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of medicine
First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English medicin, from Latin medicīna (ars) “healing (art),” feminine of medicīnus “pertaining to a physician,” from medic(us) “physician” ( cf. medical) + -īnus -ine 1
Explanation
Medicine is the field (and body of knowledge) that teaches doctors how to help people. Doctors also give medicine to patients. Cough syrup, antibiotics, and pills are all forms of medicine. When someone gives you medicine, they are medicating you. People who study medicine become doctors and nurses. Without the field of medicine — which expands all the time — there would be so much more sickness and death. Medicine is devoted to finding out everything about health, illness, and the human body.
Vocabulary lists containing medicine
National Nurses Week: Common Medical Terms
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Abbey Road
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Neighborhood Odes
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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:
"As for help from the government, there hasn't been any -- no tents, no medicine, no food, no drinking water, nothing," said Junaidin.
From Barron's ● Aug. 17, 2026
Combining protection against the three diseases has been considered a miracle of modern medicine.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 15, 2026
She has described that experience as important in shaping an interdisciplinary approach that combines basic science, computer science, and medicine.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 14, 2026
That situation results from the economics of medicine.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
“With this, I’m perfectly fine. The marvel of modern medicine, eh?”
From "The Wrong Way Home" by Kate O’Shaughnessy
The UK's medicines regulator, the MHRA, has given permission for the first human trials of a vaccine for Bundibugyo to go ahead.
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026
The Danish drugmaker’s CEO seems bullish on the prospects for the obesity-pill market, but Novo Nordisk might need deals to add more oral medicines to maintain its lead, according to Berenberg.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
Some cosmetics, medicines and supplements contain gelatin, animal fats, alcohol or other ingredients whose origins matter to observant consumers.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 12, 2026
The “high vibrational” herb shop offers “plant medicines for body, mind & wellness.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2026
Infections by "staph" and "strep" were a leading cause of death before the discovery of antibiotic medicines.
From "Phineas Gage" by John Fleischman
We were still at Windsor; our renewed hopes medicined the anguish we had suffered from the late tragedies.
From The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
"Fill high the bowl, benumb His aching sense With medicined sleep."—O awful in Thy woe!
From The Christian Year by John Keble
This man medicined my body from without nor anointed me with aught of ointments: by Allah, surely this is none other than consummate skill!
From The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 01 by Sir Richard Francis Burton
Each boat that puts to sea has been medicined with care, many incantations and other magic observances having been had recourse to, in obedience to the rules which the superstitious people have followed for ages.
From In Court and Kampong Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula by Sir Hugh Charles Clifford
Would he allow me to wear out life with famine; or was the food administered to me to be medicined with death?
From The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Thus, by the secret hand of Thy medicining was my swelling abated, and the troubled and bedimmed eyesight of my mind, by the smarting anointings of healthful sorrows, was from day to day healed.
From The Confessions of St. Augustine by E. B. (Edward Bouverie) Pusey
As the night struggles slowly into day so sickness climbs stealthily into health, and nature has a system of medicining her ailments which might only be thwarted by the ministrations of a mere doctor.
From Mary, Mary by Padraic Colum
And she Shall know no more its tender, sweet caress, Soft medicining woe.
From Lilith The Legend of the First Woman by Ada Langworthy Collier
Go thou thy way, sorrowful and suffering soul, alone; and if thy own heart bleeds, strive thou to soothe its pangs, by medicining the wounds and healing the hurts of another.
From What Answer? by Anna E. Dickinson
A great great sin plots in the house this day; Too strong for the faithful, beyond medicining … And help stands far away.
From The Agamemnon of Aeschylus Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes by Gilbert Murray
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.
