remedy
Americannoun
-
remedies
plural
-
something that cures or relieves a disease or bodily disorder; a healing medicine, application, or treatment.
- Synonyms:
- medication, medicament, specific, restorative, cure
-
something that corrects or removes an evil of any kind.
- Synonyms:
- antidote, corrective
-
Law. legal redress; the legal means of enforcing a right or redressing a wrong.
-
Coining. a certain allowance at the mint for deviation from the standard weight and fineness of coins; tolerance.
verb (used with object)
-
remedies,
present (3rd person singular)
-
remedied,
past participle, past
-
remedying
present participle
noun
-
any drug or agent that cures a disease or controls its symptoms
-
anything that serves to put a fault to rights, cure defects, improve conditions, etc
a remedy for industrial disputes
-
the legally permitted variation from the standard weight or quality of coins; tolerance
verb
-
to relieve or cure (a disease, illness, etc) by or as if by a remedy
-
to put to rights (a fault, error, etc); correct
Synonym Usage
See cure.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
remedysimple
-
remediessimple
-
have remediedperfect
-
has remediedperfect
-
am remedyingprogressive
-
are remedyingprogressive
-
is remedyingprogressive
-
have been remedyingperfect progressive
-
has been remedyingperfect progressive
Past
-
remediedsimple
-
had remediedperfect
-
was remedyingprogressive
-
were remedyingprogressive
-
had been remedyingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of remedy
First recorded in 1175–1225; (for the noun) Middle English remedie, from Anglo-French, from Latin remedium, from re- re- + med(ērī) “to heal” ( cf. medical) + -ium -ium; (for the verb) late Middle English remedien, from Middle French remedier, from Latin remediāre, derivative of remedium
Explanation
A remedy is something that relieves or cures a problem or illness. Aloe vera is a common remedy for sunburn. If you're having trouble sleeping, the first remedy you might try is a hot bath and a cup of chamomile tea. If that doesn't help, you may resort to something stronger, like a sedative. If a streetlight shining in your window is part of the problem, you can remedy the situation with some room-darkening shades. But if it's your upstairs neighbors and their all-night partying that's keeping you awake, you may have to consider a legal remedy.
Vocabulary lists containing remedy
Vocabulary from Beyoncé's "Lemonade"
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"Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare, Act IV
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"The Hunger Games" Vocabulary from Chapter 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:
Both parties are trying to remedy mistakes of elections past in the hopes of winning over the Gen Z vote, launching targeted recruitment efforts, hiring more young people and leaning into social media.
From Salon ● Oct. 2, 2026
If we ever face a larger war with a peer competitor, we need to remedy this situation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026
Unified would benefit mightily from such funds — to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, but that infusion would not solve the district’s financial problems or remedy the enrollment decline.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026
"I guess it's safe to say that the line between war and peace has been blurred, and that's the new reality that we live with in Europe right now," he said, prescribing his Nordic remedy.
From Barron's ● Sep. 15, 2026
The commission cautioned, “The remedy is necessarily slow.”
From "A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919" by Claire Hartfield
Luckily, those diseases can be cured by antibiotics or other remedies.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 4, 2026
He listed a number of ideas, from "slowing the water down" using farming landscaping remedies, to tree planting and better monitoring "so we know when things might be getting worse".
From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2026
But those remedies have limited applicability to the more than 1 in 5 students who attend rural schools.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2026
In other countries in the world, where medication is available for everyone who needs it, defrauding the public with worthless remedies is curtailed if not made impossible.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 17, 2026
Most people had the sense not to share a dieting trick with an overweight person, but no one seemed to think it was wrong to share their acne remedies with me.
From "Americanized" by Sara Saedi
“Irregular took immediate action, and all known issues on our end were remedied and resolved weeks ago.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
Much to the astronauts' relief, Koch remedied the issue with the toilet aboard Orion -- "I'm proud to call myself the space plumber," she said during a Q&A session late Thursday with US media.
From Barron's ● Apr. 4, 2026
Every single person in that room revealed that they had dense breasts, which we thought could be remedied somehow through self-massage.
From Slate ● Feb. 4, 2026
"This situation must be remedied – not by going 'further and faster' - but by recognising and fixing the clear and destructive weaknesses in your government's approach," she wrote.
From BBC ● Nov. 14, 2025
Within days, he had remedied the experimental shortcomings that had prevented Lawrence from producing mesons, and before the end of the month had captured tracks of the first artificial mesons ever seen.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
The iOS 26.4 update improved keyboard accuracy by remedying the ghost-letter problem, but autocorrect issues persist.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 29, 2026
“This has been one of the holy grails of remedying the Korean discount, and there’s at least a 50-50 chance of it passing this year,” he says.
From Barron's ● Dec. 31, 2025
The truce extension will give more time for negotiations about "remedying trade imbalances" and "unfair trade practices", the White House said.
From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2025
But watching the Olympics and absorbing the best of the Games has always been borderline impossible, and Peacock is our best hope for remedying that problem.
From Slate ● Jul. 23, 2024
Fizz is prone to remedying me and would invariably seek the answer to my “problem.”
From "Saints and Misfits" by S.K. Ali
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
