medicines

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of medicine.

   Pharmacists must store certain medicines at refrigerated temperatures.

   The clinic ran short of essential medicines during the outbreak.

   Note

   Only the countable meanings of medicine take a plural. So medicines always means particular drugs or remedies: the ones a pharmacy stocks, or, more broadly, treatments and cures. The study of disease and the physician's profession are mass nouns. A student studies medicine, never medicines. When the plural appears, the reader can be sure that substances or cures are meant, not the field.

2. 2
   verbobsolete

   Third-person singular simple present of medicine. Obsolete.

   Note

   The spelling is shared with the plural noun, but here it belongs to a verb meaning "to treat with medicine." That verb is both obsolete and rare. In present-day prose, a sentence like he medicines the flock reads as deliberately old-fashioned, and many readers will take medicines for the noun at first glance. For ordinary writing, treats says the same thing without the stumble.

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