Prescribe

How to spell prescribe

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce prescribe

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does prescribe mean?

1. verbTo advise or authorise the use of a medicine or treatment for a patient, typically by writing it on an official order.
2. verbTo state officially that something should be done, or to lay down a rule or method to be followed.

Prescribe in a sentence

• The doctor decided to prescribe a stronger antibiotic for the infection.

• The regulations prescribe exactly how the forms must be completed.

• Some specialists will not prescribe painkillers without a full assessment.

• Company policy can prescribe the safety equipment workers must wear.

Where does prescribe come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin praescribere, which literally meant 'to write before' or 'to write at the head', formed from prae 'before' and scribere 'to write'. In Roman usage it carried the sense of writing an instruction or direction in advance, so it came to mean laying down a rule or giving an authoritative order. English adopted it in the fifteenth century, first with this general sense of directing or ordaining, and only later did it settle into its familiar medical meaning of a doctor writing out a course of treatment. The same scribere root still surfaces in everyday relatives such as describe, scribble, and manuscript. The most useful spelling note is the prefix: prescribe (with pre-, 'before') means to recommend or order, while its near twin proscribe (with pro-) means to forbid, so the vowel that opens the word completely flips the meaning.

How the word is built

• pre- (before)
• scribe (from Latin scribere: to write)