Definition of "medicine"

medicine

/ˈmɛd.ɪ.s(ɪ)n/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural medicines
1. (uncountable, countable) A substance which specifically promotes healing when ingested or consumed in some way; a pharmaceutical drug.
2. (broadly, countable) Any treatment or cure.
  Quotations
  Surely every medicine is an innovation; and he that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils […]
  1625, Francis Bacon, Of Innovation
3. (uncountable) The study of the cause, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of disease or illness.
4. (uncountable) The profession and practice of physicians, including surgeons.
  1. (mainly historical, uncountable) The profession and practice of nonsurgical physicians as sometimes distinguished from that of surgeons.
5. (uncountable) Ritual magic used, as by a medicine man, to promote a desired outcome in healing, hunting, or warfare; traditional medicine.
6. Among the Native Americans, any object supposed to give control over natural or magical forces, to act as a protective charm, or to cause healing.
  Quotations
  The North American Indian boy usually took as his medicine the first animal of which he dreamed during the long and solitary fast that he observed at puberty.
  1896, F. H. Giddings, The Principles of Sociology
7. (obsolete) Black magic, superstition.
8. (obsolete) A philter or love potion.
  Quotations
  If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged. It could not be else. I have drunk medicines.
  1597, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I, II. ii. 18
9. (obsolete) A physician.
  Quotations
  I have seen a medicine / That's able to breathe life into a stone
  1598, William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well, II. i. 72
10. (slang) Recreational drugs, especially alcoholic drinks.
verb
third-person singular simple present medicines, present participle medicining, simple past and past participle medicined
1. (rare, obsolete) To treat with medicine.
  Quotations
  And we shall find, under the head of the medicining of the body, some things on the subject of medicine in general, which could be better said there than here, because of the wrath of professional dignitaries,- the eye of the 'basilisk,' was not perhaps quite so terrible in that quarter then, as it was in some others.
  1857, Delia Bacon, The philosophy of the plays of Shakspere unfolded