materia medica
Americannoun
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(used with a plural verb) the remedial substances employed in medicine.
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Also called pharmacognosy. (used with a singular verb) the science dealing with the sources, physical characteristics, uses, and doses of drugs.
noun
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the branch of medical science concerned with the study of drugs used in the treatment of disease: includes pharmacology, clinical pharmacology, and the history and physical and chemical properties of drugs
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the drugs used in the treatment of disease
Etymology
Origin of materia medica
1690–1700; < Medieval Latin: medical material
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.
Amazingly, I found spiders' webs and many other materia medica mentioned in the ancient literature when my wife and I visited the shop of a traditional healer in the Turkish city of Konya.
From Slate • Mar. 4, 2012
A man who makes it his business to examine samples of ergot from all countries is Dr. Henry Hurd Rusby, 74, professor of botany, physiology and materia medica at Columbia University since 1888.
From Time Magazine Archive
The university's Assyriologist Samuel Noah Kramer needed the help of Pennsylvania State College's Dr. Martin Levey, a specialist in the history of science, to figure out the materia medica which the ancient physician was prescribing.
From Time Magazine Archive
They must know what the regular school knows, except materia medica.
From Time Magazine Archive
From this physician’s observations, coffee may become a valuable addition to our materia medica; and the homœopathic practitioners maintain that they have employed it with great success in various maladies.
From Curiosities of Medical Experience by Millingen, J. G. (John Gideon)
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.
