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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Unit 4
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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:
Rapamycin is already used in medicine to prevent the immune system from rejecting transplanted organs and to treat certain rare conditions.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 6, 2026
He hopes to specialise in either surgery, neurology or emergency medicine.
From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2026
One was an 18th Century medicine chest which was removed from the White House when the British set it on fire in 1812.
From BBC ● Nov. 5, 2026
Yet in the race to integrate AI into medicine, a sharp divide has emerged between Silicon Valley’s promises and what pharma execs say are the harsh realities of drugmaking, reports Xavier Martinez.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 4, 2026
"I'll prepare a good medicine for you. And about the food, I'll·let you eat everything you want and as much as you want."
From "Adventures of Don Quixote" by Argentina Palacios
It went on to encourage its members not to knowingly dispense medicines that would be misused - and report any side affects to the health authorities of those that had been.
From BBC ● Nov. 5, 2026
The company also said that veterinary practices had, like many businesses across the UK "experienced increased operating costs over the past year, including rises in energy, wages, medicines and other essential supplies".
From BBC ● Nov. 5, 2026
McKinsey senior partner Alex Devereson, who focuses on AI in drug development, said the technology can design new experimental medicines quicker than before, but that doesn’t mean it is coming up with workable drugs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 4, 2026
Because these reactions play important roles in cellular chemistry, trisulfides have attracted growing interest as potential ingredients in new medicines.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 4, 2026
There were other hospitals in the region, but none was as well equipped or well managed, and each charged patients for medicines and supplies.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
So far, this is exactly what we should expect, on the view that structure and instinct are alike mainly due to memory, or to medicined memory.
From Life and Habit by R. A. (Richard Alexander) Streatfeild
He followed in her wake without her knowing it, and made for his own lodging where he dressed his wounds and medicined himself till he was whole.
From The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 01 by Sir Richard Francis Burton
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
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
For two long weeks had he to be abed, he, who, as he himself told, had never to this day needed any healing but such as the leech who medicined his beasts could give him.
From Margery — Complete by Georg Ebers
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
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
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
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
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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.
