DictionaryAI

prescription

noun
pri-SKRIP-shuhn/pɹəˈskɹɪpʃən/

Pluralprescriptions

8 meanings of prescription

Practice

  1. 1
    nouncountable
    A written order from a doctor that lets you get medicine or another treatment.

    Like a signed note that lets you pick up your medicine.

    The doctor gave her a prescription for the cough medicine.

    You need a prescription to buy these stronger pills.

    Note
  2. 2
    nouncountable
    The medicine or treatment that a doctor's written order tells you to use.

    Like the actual pills you get, not the note that orders them.

    He picked up his prescription at the counter after lunch.

    Take your prescription twice a day with food.

    Similarmedication, medicine

    Note
  3. 3
    nounfigurativelycountable
    A plan or piece of advice for fixing or dealing with a problem.

    Like a recipe that tells you what to do to fix a problem.

    More sleep was his prescription for feeling better.

    Her prescription for the team was simple: practice harder.

    Similarremedy, recipe, formula, cure, recommendation

    Note
  4. 4
    noununcountable
    A fixed length of time. Once it passes, a legal right can no longer be used.

    Like a deadline: once it passes, you lose your chance to act.

    Under the new law, prescription bars any claim made after ten years.

    The old debt could not be collected because prescription had already set in.

    Similarlimitation

    Note
  5. 5
    noununcountable
    A set period of time. After it, someone who has openly used another person's property can become its legal owner.

    Like a path across a field that becomes yours after years of everyone letting you use it.

    Through prescription, the farmer gained ownership of the unused strip of land.

    After thirty years, prescription gave the family title to the path they had always used.

    Note
  6. 6
    nouncountable or uncountable
    The act of making a law or rule official, especially in writing.

    The prescription of new safety rules took effect last year.

    Many drivers objected to the prescription of higher fines.

    Similarenactment

    Oppositerepeal

    Note
  7. 7
    nouncountable or uncountable
    Setting rules for how language should be used, instead of just describing how people really use it.

    Like a teacher marking what is correct, instead of just noting what students say.

    Grammar guides are full of prescription about what is right and wrong.

    Strict prescription often ignores how people actually speak every day.

    Similarprescriptivism

    Oppositedescription, descriptivism

    Note

Less common meaning

  1. 8
    nounobsoleteuncountable
    Control of one's own actions, following a moral code or social rules.
    There is an air of prescription about him which is always agreeable to Sir Leicester; he receives it as a kind of tribute.
    1852, Charles Dickens, Bleak HouseHere, prescription means self-control and keeping to the proper rules.

    Similarself-restraint

    Note

Practice

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Origin

It came from Latin praescriptio, meaning something written ahead of time. This came from prae- (before) plus scribere (to write).