patent medicine
Americannoun
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a medicine sold without a prescription in drugstores or by sales representatives, and usually protected by a trademark.
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a medicine distributed by a company having a patent on its manufacture.
noun
Etymology
Origin of patent medicine
First recorded in 1760–70
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.
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
The familiar verbal effluvia of the patent medicine industry clutter some early posters.
From New York Times ● Jun. 20, 2011
Together they raise a child named Peter who as a boy suffers tularemia — rabbit fever — and becomes synesthetic after drinking patent medicine sold by a mysterious figure.
From Washington Post
“An’ I bet he’s eatin’ raw eggs and writin’ to the patent medicine houses.”
From "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck
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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.
