prescription

plural prescriptions · alternative præscription

1. countableuncountablepharmacymedicineA 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.

   1 more example

   An old traditional prescription for provoking erotic inclinations ran as follows, The toe of the foot of a man, anointed with oil, or honey, or the ashes of a weasel.

   1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 234

   Synonyms: scrip, forescript, Rx, ℞

2. countableuncountablemedicineThe medicine or treatment provided by such an order.

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

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   "Oh, yes; she is the only sort of person for a nurse. She always," cried Lady Anne, with a sneer, "comes to you with a receipt for a pudding in one hand to make you ill, and then a prescription in the other to cure you."

   1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter I, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 9

3. countablefigurativelyuncountableAny 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.

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   Change is the universal prescription for a wounded spirit. "It will do you so much good," is the constant remark.

   1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Return to Courtenaye Hall”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 145

   ...looking at him I saw that I had been wrong in my prescription, if not in my diagnosis, and that the whisky was working against us.

   1964, Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 157

4. countableuncountablelawSynonym 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.

   1997, Richard G. Alexander, “Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996: Congress Exceeds Its Jurisdiction to Prescribe Law”, in Washington & Lee Law Review, page 1609

   Synonyms: enactment

5. countableuncountablehuman sciencesThe act of establishing or formalizing ideal norms for language use, as opposed to describing the actual norms of such use; an instance of this.
6. countableuncountablelawAn established time period within which a right must be exercised and after which it is null and permanently unenforceable.

   Synonyms: extinctive prescription, liberative prescription

7. countableuncountablelawAn established time period after which a person who has uninterruptedly, peacefully, and publicly used another's property acquires full ownership of it.

   Synonyms: acquisitive prescription, usucaption

8. countableobsoleteuncountableSynonym 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.

   1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, chapter 2, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC

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