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:
Dai Yuanyuan, 24, works in a biology lab where she helps conduct experiments that could lead to finding the next lifesaving medicine.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026
In theory, the internal medicine or family medicine doctor oversees your preventive care, ongoing symptoms, chronic conditions, and referrals to specialists.
From Slate ● Aug. 22, 2026
The app allows farmers like McClements to complete medicine records on the move and keep track of what tasks need to be done by whom around the farm.
From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026
Read: Moderna’s experimental vaccine prevents cancer recurrence, in ‘historic’ win for personalized medicine.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 19, 2026
Or, rather, if you were only depressed while doing your rounds and pretending to be interested in practicing, as opposed to studying, medicine?
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
Patients still have to wait for the treatment to be approved by the medicines regulator before it is made available on the NHS.
From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026
Understanding how these separate pathways interact could also help researchers design more effective combinations of obesity medicines in the future.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 15, 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
People need their medicines and treatments no matter what the economy or the AI build-out is doing, so demand and cash flows remain relatively constant even when the economy slows down.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026
Nan’s jams, Pop’s medicines, Darin’s drawings, my books, gone.
From "An Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir
When he revived, he would have medicined my eye, but found there was but the socket left and said, "O my son, it is well that it was thine eye and not thy life!"
From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Volume I by John Payne
They are gathered together as patients in a hospital are gathered, that their sickness may be medicined and their wounds dressed.
From Expositions of Holy Scripture Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and First Book of Samuel, Second Samuel, First Kings, and Second Kings chapters I to VII by Alexander Maclaren
An excellent constitution soon medicined his wounds; and there was a balsam in the looks and words of Inez, that had a healing effect on the still severer wounds which he carried in his heart.
From Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists by Washington Irving
I question whether reading Seneca, or Epictetus, or any moral or philosophic writer, living or dead, would have as effectually medicined my mind.
From Tales and Novels — Volume 09 by Maria Edgeworth
But the slave-girl medicined herself and became well; and she kept what remained of the poison and sold it to those who asked for it.
From The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 14 by Sir Richard Francis Burton
Certainly, now you see that all your Doctoring and medicining hath been to some purpose, and now you feel also that all herbs were made for some good effects.
From The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and the Second Part, The Confession of the New Married Couple by A. Marsh
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
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
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
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
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.
