dose

plural doses

1. 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.

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

   1 more example

   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.

   2014 April 21, “Subtle effects”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8884

3. datedfigurativelyAnything disagreeable that must be taken.

   Synonyms: fill

4. figurativelyA good measure or lengthy experience of something.

   a healthy dose of skepticism.

   3 more examples

   “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.”

   1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 197

   The prospect of becoming a father is a dose of reality that threatens to bring his dream world crashing down.

   2001, Susan Stryker, Queer Pulp, page 78

   People who don't get their daily dose of light at the right time of day can end up with worse health.

   2025 December 9, Veronique Greenwood, “Your Bedroom Probably Isn't Dark Enough”, in TIME

5. datedA venereal infection.

   It would be very expensive to cure a dose here, as well as unbelievably painful.

   1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 382

   1 more example

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

   1972, Shel Silverstein, “Don't Give A Dose to the One You Love Most”

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

   There's a dose going round.

present singular third person doses · participle present dosing · participle past dosed · past dosed

1. transitiveTo administer a dose (of medicine) to.

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

   1871, George Meredith, The Adventures of Harry Richmond, page 270

2. To prescribe a dose.
3. transitiveTo 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.

   2016, Pamela Donovan, Drink Spiking and Predatory Drugging: A Modern History, page 71

4. datedtransitiveTo transmit a venereal disease to.

   Sometime back, one of your scarlet sisters dosed me proper.

   1977, The White Buffalo, Wild Bill Hickok

plural doses

1. archaicArchaic form of doze.

   Just at the dawning of the day, I fell into a dose more like sleep than any I had during the whole night, in which I dreamed that I saw a river as clear as crystal […]

   1839, Benjamin Abbott, Experience and Gospel Labors of the Rev. Benjamin Abbott

present singular third person doses · participle present dosing · participle past dosed · past dosed

1. archaicArchaic form of doze.

   It was to me a marvellous experience; to be here, propped up with pillows in a dimly-lighted room, the night-nurse idly dosing by the fire; the sound of the everlasting wind in my ears, howling outside […]

   1918, William Henry Hudson, Far Away And Long Ago