Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Medicine   /mˈɛdəsən/   Listen
noun
Medicine  n.  
1.
The science which relates to the prevention, cure, or alleviation of disease.
2.
Any substance administered in the treatment of disease; a remedial agent; a medication; a drug; a pharmaceutical; a medicament; a remedy; physic. "By medicine, life may be prolonged."
3.
A philter or love potion. (Obs.)
4.
A physician. (Obs.)
5.
(a)
Among the North American Indians, any object supposed to give control over natural or magical forces, to act as a protective charm, or to cause healing; also, magical power itself; the potency which a charm, token, or rite is supposed to exert. "The North American Indian boy usually took as his medicine the first animal of which he dreamed during the long and solitary fast that he observed at puberty."
(b)
Hence, a similar object or agency among other savages.
6.
Short for Medicine man.
7.
Intoxicating liquor; drink. (Slang)
Medicine bag, a charm; so called among the North American Indians, or in works relating to them.
Medicine man (among the North American Indians), a person who professes to cure sickness, drive away evil spirits, and regulate the weather by the arts of magic; a shaman.
Medicine seal, a small gem or paste engraved with reversed characters, to serve as a seal. Such seals were used by Roman physicians to stamp the names of their medicines.



verb
Medicine  v. t.  To give medicine to; to affect as a medicine does; to remedy; to cure. "Medicine thee to that sweet sleep."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Medicine" Quotes from Famous Books



... some five years ago with a particularly good outfit to practice medicine in that quaint and alluring old burgh, full of antique hand-made furniture and traditions. He had not only been well trained for his profession in the best medical school and hospital of New York, but he was also a graduate ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke

... her force, I cannot tell) it is not found of so great efficacy as they write. And beside this, our common germander or thistle benet is found and known to be so wholesome and of so great power in medicine as any other herb, if they be used accordingly. I could exemplify after the like manner in sundry other, as the Salsa parilla, Mochoacan, etc., but I forbear so to do, because I covet to be brief. And truly, the estimation and ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... o' good, Perez, if ye will. I never see a feller set sech store by trees and mountings as George does. They're jess like medicine to him, an he's fell off faster'n ever since I hain't been able ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... opinions, though with most persons the most powerful of all, are but remote causes; they do not act directly, but by means of the intellectual causes; to which they bear the same relation that the circumstances called, in the theory of medicine, predisposing causes, bear to exciting causes. Indifference to truth can not, in and by itself, produce erroneous belief; it operates by preventing the mind from collecting the proper evidences, or from applying to them the test of a legitimate and rigid ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... so very sick. They tell me she cannot live many days; but I think if only I have money I can save her yet. I can have doctors to see her, big doctors who will go to sick people only for very much money. I can buy her food and medicine and perhaps send her away to some place where the sun will shine for her, where she can breathe God's pure air. Why even strong people can scarce live in a place like this where the sunshine never come, where it is cold and damp all the time. How can the poor little mother hope to ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams


More quotes...



Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com