Meanings
- not comparableIn a mithridatic manner, gradually increasing doses of a poison or (figurative) other pernicious thing so as to build resistance or immunity.
We do not, for instance, treat diphtheria mithridatically, or according to the Jenner-Pasteur method.
1906, “Professor von Behring's Treatment of Tuberculosis”, in The Medical Bulletin: A Monthly Journal of Medicine and Surgery, page 4132 more examples
Moreover, his violence is not only a method of making art, but also a way of indicating the perverse self-destructiveness of art-making while warding it off through mithridatically indulging in it: as the previously mentioned title suggests, Nagel is acutely aware that he is exposing, objectifying, even reifying his moods, threatening not only his privacy but the very quality of his inner life.
1990, Donald Burton Kuspit, Andrés Nagel: an irreverent approach, page 1966There is much in traditional nudism to suggest that, so far from being erotically driven, it is actually puritanical in tendency, being an attempt, mithridatically as it were, to immunize oneself against (“irrational”) sexual desire by outfacing its normal visual stimuli.
2012, Paul Franco, A Companion to Michael Oakeshott
Origin
Cite this entry
mithridatically. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mithridatically
“mithridatically.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mithridatically. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “mithridatically,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mithridatically.
Source: mithridatically on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.