prescription

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a drug that is available only with written instructions from a doctor or dentist to a pharmacist

   I told the doctor that I had been taking my prescription regularly.

2. 2
   noun

   A written order from an authorized medical practitioner for provision of a medicine or other treatment, such as (ophthalmology) the specific lenses needed for a pair of glasses.

   The surgeon had written thousands of prescriptions for pain killers without proper examinations before the police raided the clinic.

3. 3
   noun

   The medicine or treatment provided by such an order.

   I need you to pick up gramma's prescriptions on your way home.

4. 4
   noun

   Any plan of treatment or handling; the treatment or handling thus provided.

   Early to bed and early to rise is a prescription for a long, healthy, and terrible life.

5. 5
   noun

   Synonym of enactment, the act of establishing a law, regulation, etc., particularly in writing; an instance of this.

   A statute that cannot find justification for its prescription in one or more of these principles violates international law.

6. 6
   noun

   Synonym of self-restraint, limiting of one's actions especially according to a moral code or social conventions.

   There is an air of prescription about him which is always agreeable to Sir Leicester; he receives it as a kind of tribute.

7. 7
   adj

   available only with a doctor's written prescription

8. 8
   noun

   written instructions from a physician or dentist to a druggist concerning the form and dosage of a drug to be issued to a given patient

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French, from Old French prescripcion, from Latin praescriptio (“preface; pretext; something written ahead of time”), from prae- (“pre-, before”) + scribere (“to write”) + -tio (“-tion, forming nouns”). Equivalent to prescribe + -tion.