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:
US tech workers are typically well-compensated, external, and while other industries such as investment banking, law and medicine also often see people work long hours, a 14-hour workday was not always the norm in tech.
From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026
Dr. Amy Zeidan, an emergency medicine doctor and associate professor at Emory University who studies immigrant detainee health outcomes, said the VA data show detained immigrants require significant medical care.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
Dr. Mary K. Mulcahey, chief of sports medicine at Loyola University Medical Center, who specializes in shoulder and knee injuries, said AI would likely have a hard time distinguishing between different types of meniscus tears.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
Studying how their immune systems have survived and adapted over hundreds of millions of years could offer useful clues for modern medicine.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 5, 2026
When this happened before, not long after we moved back, Dad explained how a hospital nebulizer is stronger and better able to move medicine to the lungs.
From "Clairboyance" by Kristiana Kahakauwila
SMA causes muscle weakness and gets progressively worse over time - there is no cure, but there are medicines and other treatments to manage the symptoms.
From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2026
One reason is the patient out-of-pocket cap encouraged higher utilization of medicines like GLP-1s and may have also discouraged use of lower-cost biosimilars and generics.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
Dalziel notes that acetaminophen and ibuprofen are among the medicines most often prescribed or purchased over the counter for babies around the world.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 6, 2026
She told MarketWatch that Novo remains focused on innovative science and methods of getting medicines to people who need them.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 5, 2026
In a clearing spread a vast garden teeming with familiar and exotic plants, the ingredients of all the. varied medicines and liniments favored at court.
From "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein
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 Maclaren, Alexander
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 Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
For two long weeks had he to he 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 — Volume 08 by Bell, Clara
This was grievous to Gharib who commanded the hurt to be medicined and turning to his Chief Officers, asked them what they counselled.
From The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 07 by Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
We were still at Windsor; our renewed hopes medicined the anguish we had suffered from the late tragedies.
From The Last Man by Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
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 Murray, Gilbert
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 Dickinson, Anna E.
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 Marsh, A.
And she Shall know no more its tender, sweet caress, Soft medicining woe.
From Lilith The Legend of the First Woman by Collier, Ada Langworthy
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 Colum, Padraic
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.
