prescription

• præscription (archaic)

Borrowed from Middle French, from Old French prescripcion, from Latin praescriptio (“preface; pretext; something written ahead of time”), from prae- (“pre-, before”) + scribere (“to write”) + -tio (“-tion, forming nouns”).

• IPA^(key): /pɹəˈskɹɪpʃən/, (proscribed) /pɝˈskɹɪpʃən/

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prescription (countable and uncountable, plural prescriptions)

1. (medicine, pharmacy, pharmacology) A 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.

   Synonyms: scrip, forescript, Rx, ℞

   The surgeon had written thousands of prescriptions for pain killers without proper examinations before the police raided the clinic.

2. (medicine) The medicine or treatment provided by such an order.

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

   • 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:

     "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."

3. (figurative) Any 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.

   • 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:

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

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

     ...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.

4. (law) Synonym of enactment, the act of establishing a law, regulation, etc., particularly in writing; an instance of this.
   • 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:

     A statute that cannot find justification for its prescription in one or more of these principles violates international law.

5. (linguistics) The 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. (law) An 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. (law) An 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. (obsolete) Synonym of self-restraint, limiting of one's actions especially according to a moral code or social conventions.
   • 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, chapter 2, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC:

     There is an air of prescription about him which is always agreeable to Sir Leicester; he receives it as a kind of tribute.

Often misspelled as or confused with proscription, the act of prohibiting something or condemning someone; in the linguistic sense, proscription is hyponymous to prescription.

• prescribe

prescription (not comparable)

1. only available with a physician or nurse practitioner's written prescription (of a drug, etc.)

   Many powerful pain killers are prescription drugs in the U.S.

• prescriptivism

Inherited from Old French prescripcion, itself borrowed from Latin praescrīptiō.

• IPA^(key): /pʁɛs.kʁip.sjɔ̃/

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prescription f (plural prescriptions)

1. (medicine) prescription (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)
2. (law, sometimes figuratively) abandon of legal action by virtue of a statute of limitations; principle by which a person can no longer be prosecuted for a crime when a certain amount of time has elapsed

   Il y a prescription. ― Let bygones be bygones.

3. (linguistics) prescription (act of establishing or formalizing ideal norms for language use, as opposed to describing the actual norms of such use)

   Coordinate term: description

• Not to be confused with proscription.

• prescriptif
• imprescriptible

• “prescription”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From Old French prescripcion, borrowed from Latin praescriptio, praescriptionem.

prescription f (plural prescriptions)

1. (Jersey) prescription