Medicine
nounA substance taken or given to treat or prevent illness.
How to spell medicine
8 letters · 3 syllables
How to pronounce medicine
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does medicine mean?
- nounA substance taken or given to treat or prevent illness.
- nounThe science and practice of diagnosing, treating, and preventing disease.
Medicine in a sentence
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The pharmacist explained when to take each medicine during the day.
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After six years of study she finally qualified to practise medicine.
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She keeps the children's medicine on the top shelf, out of reach.
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Advances in medicine have greatly extended the average lifespan.
Where does medicine come from?
Language of origin: Latin
This word travelled into English through Old French medecine during the 1200s, drawn ultimately from the Latin medicina, which meant both the healing art and the remedies a healer used. That noun was built on medicus, meaning 'physician' or 'healer', which in turn came from the verb mederi, 'to heal' or 'to look after'. The same mederi root quietly survives in the words 'remedy' and 'medical', so they make handy spelling cousins. The tricky part for writers is the unstressed middle, often swallowed in British speech as 'med-sin', which hides the letter 'i', and the soft '-cine' ending where the 'c' sounds like an 's' but is never spelled that way.
How the word is built
- medic- (from Latin medicus: physician, healer)
- -ine (noun suffix)
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