dose

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the quantity of an active agent, substance, or radiation taken in or absorbed at any one time

   Be careful not to take more or less than the prescribed dose.

2. 2
   noun

   A measured portion of medicine taken at any one time.

   Why did he give you only a single 500 mg dose? The correct dosage of this antibiotic is one 500 mg tablet twice a day for 10 days.

3. 3
   noun

   The quantity of an agent (not always active), substance, or radiation administered or experienced at any one time.

   Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese[…]began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated. The poisoning was irreversible, and soon ended in psychosis and death. Nowadays workers are exposed to far lower doses and manganism is rare.

4. 4
   noun

   A good measure or lengthy experience of something.

   “I had then, as you remember, just returned to London after a lot of Indian Ocean, Pacific, China Seas - a regular dose of the East - six years or so, and I was loafing about, hindering you fellows in your work and invading your homes, just as though I had got a heavenly mission to civilise you.”

5. 5
   noun

   A venereal infection.

   Don't give a dose to the one you love most. / Give her some marmalade... give her some toast.

6. 6
   noun

   A cold; a common, viral illness of the nasal passage, sometimes with fever.

   There's a dose going round.

7. 7
   verb

   To administer a dose (of medicine) to.

   "She thought herself broad awake, and I have dosed her with an opiate."

8. 8
   verb

   To surreptitiously administer a dose of an incapacitating drug (to an unwilling subject); to roofie.

   The defense never conceded that their clients had administered chloral [hydrate], but Death and Campbell said initially—during their contested station house confessions—that McAlister had dosed [Jennie Bosschieter's] drink.

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French dose, from Late Latin dosis, from Ancient Greek δόσις (dósis, “a portion prescribed”, literally “a giving”), used by Galen and other Greek physicians to mean an amount of medicine, from δίδωμι (dídōmi, “to give”). Doublet of doos.