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View synonyms for medicine

medicine

[ med-uh-sinor, especially British, med-suhn ]

noun

  1. any substance or substances used in treating disease or illness; medicament; remedy.

    Synonyms: physic, pharmaceutical, drug, medication

  2. 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.
  3. the art or science of treating disease with drugs or curative substances, as distinguished from surgery and obstetrics.
  4. the medical profession.
  5. (among North American Indians) any object or practice regarded as having magical powers.


verb (used with object)

, med·i·cined, med·i·cin·ing.
  1. to administer medicine to.

medicine

/ ˈmɛdsɪn; ˈmɛdɪsɪn /

noun

  1. any drug or remedy for use in treating, preventing, or alleviating the symptoms of disease
  2. the science of preventing, diagnosing, alleviating, or curing disease
  3. any nonsurgical branch of medical science
  4. the practice or profession of medicine Aesculapianiatric

    he's in medicine

  5. something regarded by primitive people as having magical or remedial properties
  6. take one's medicine
    to accept a deserved punishment
  7. a taste of one's own medicine or a dose of one's own medicine
    an unpleasant experience in retaliation for and by similar methods to an unkind or aggressive act
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


medicine

/ mĕdĭ-sĭn /

  1. The scientific study or practice of diagnosing, treating, and preventing diseases or disorders of the body or mind of a person or animal.
  2. An agent, such as a drug, used to treat disease or injury.


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Other Words From

  • anti·medi·cine adjective
  • super·medi·cine noun
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Word History and Origins

Origin of medicine1

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” ( medical ) + -īnus -ine 1
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Word History and Origins

Origin of medicine1

C13: via Old French from Latin medicīna ( ars ) (art of) healing, from medicus doctor, from medērī to heal
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Idioms and Phrases

Idioms
  1. 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.
  2. take one's medicine, to undergo or accept punishment, especially deserved punishment:

    He took his medicine like a man.

More idioms and phrases containing medicine

see dose of one's own medicine ; take one's medicine .
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Example Sentences

Silicon Valley’s hunger for H-1B talent may routinely make headlines, but tech isn’t doling out the biggest paycheques for those on the long-term work visa—medicine is.

From Quartz

I am an infectious disease doctor and a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Neandertals used medicine and tools just as humans of the time did.

Brain death has been a recognized concept in medicine for decades.

As an example, most people realize that while jacking the price of a medicine up during a health crisis would boost profits, it would also be morally indefensible.

The trials produced positive results, published in The New England Journal of Medicine in November.

If laughter is the best medicine, The Comeback made you feel enough pain to need a dose—and then it delivered in spades.

The religion shaped all facets of life: art, medicine, literature, and even dynastic politics.

Certain trades, such as medicine or law, are eternally well-respected.

In this understanding, art is like a medicine or a toxin, transforming its audience for good or ill.

Insult and outrage seemed to have given that bodily vigour to Ripperda, which medicine and surgery had taken no pains to restore.

Barclay, in his tract on "The Vertues of Tobacco," recommends its use as a medicine.

We knew then that his medicine was bad medicine, otherwise the white baas without the pictures could not have killed him.

And she did go; the doctor with great attention sending in half a dozen of medicine, to be drunk upon the road.

William Read died; originally a cobbler, became a mountebank, and practiced medicine by the light of nature!

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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.

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