patent medicine

American  

noun

1. a medicine sold without a prescription in drugstores or by sales representatives, and usually protected by a trademark.

2. a medicine distributed by a company having a patent on its manufacture.

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patent medicine British  

noun

1. a medicine protected by a patent and available without a doctor's prescription

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Etymology

Origin of patent medicine

First recorded in 1760–70

Example Sentences

The school, which occupied a massive home that patent medicine entrepreneur and Civil War surgeon Col.

From Los Angeles Times • May 15, 2025

Popular since the 1840s, root beer, which, like so many of America’s sodas, straddled the line between patent medicine and soothing nonalcoholic libation, was enjoyed as a hot beverage or as a carbonated soda.

From Seattle Times • Jun. 14, 2023

A bottle of patent medicine, still half-full of “extract of liverwort,” sold by Shakers in the early 19th century to support their fledgling religious community.

From Washington Post • Oct. 28, 2016

The familiar verbal effluvia of the patent medicine industry clutter some early posters.

From New York Times • Jun. 20, 2011

There Clarkson had to push his way through a crowd of vendors selling coffins and patent medicine cures.

From "An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793" by Jim Murphy