PRESCRIPTION
prescription
(adjective) available only with a doctor’s written prescription; “a prescription drug”
prescription
(noun) written instructions from a physician or dentist to a druggist concerning the form and dosage of a drug to be issued to a given patient
prescription
(noun) written instructions for an optician on the lenses for a given person
prescription
(noun) directions prescribed beforehand; the action of prescribing authoritative rules or directions; “I tried to follow her prescription for success”
Source: WordNet® 3.1
Etymology
Noun
prescription (countable and uncountable, plural prescriptions)
(legal)
Also called extinctive prescription or liberative prescription. A time period within which a right must be exercised, otherwise it will be extinguished.
Also called acquisitive prescription. A time period after which a person who has, in the role of an owner, uninterruptedly, peacefully, and publicly possessed another's property acquires the property. The described process is known as acquisition by prescription and adverse possession.
(medicine, pharmacy, pharmacology) A written order, as by a physician or nurse practitioner, for the administration of a medicine or other intervention. See also scrip.
• The surgeon wrote a prescription for a pain killer and physical therapy.
(medicine) The prescription medicine or intervention so prescribed.
• The pharmacist gave her a bottle containing her prescription.
(ophthalmology) The formal description of the lens geometry needed for spectacles, etc..
• The optician followed the optometrist's prescription for her new eyeglasses.
(linguistics) The act or practice of laying down norms of language usage, as opposed to description, i.e. recording and describing actual usage.
(linguistics) An instance of a prescriptive pronouncement.
A plan or procedure to obtain a given end result; a recipe.
• "Early to bed and early to rise" is a prescription for a healthy lifestyle.
(obsolete) Circumscription; restraint; limitation.
Usage notes
• Do not confuse with proscription.
Synonyms
• forescript
• (medicine): ℞, Rx
• (a plan or procedure): recipe
Adjective
prescription (not comparable)
(of a drug, etc.) only available with a physician or nurse practitioner's written prescription
Source: Wiktionary
Pre*scrip"tion, n. Etym: [F. prescription, L. praescriptio,an
inscription, preface, precept, demurrer, prescription (in sense 3),
fr. praescribere. See Prescribe.]
1. The act of prescribing, directing, or dictating; direction;
precept; also, that which is prescribed.
2. (Med.)
Definition: A direction of a remedy or of remedies for a disease, and the
manner of using them; a medical recipe; also, a prescribed remedy.
3. (Law)
Definition: A prescribing for title; the claim of title to a thing by
virtue immemorial use and enjoyment; the right or title acquired by
possession had during the time and in the manner fixed by law. Bacon.
That profound reverence for law and prescription which has long been
characteristic of Englishmen. Macaulay.
Note: Prescription differs from custom, which is a local usage, while
prescription is personal, annexed to the person only. Prescription
only extends to incorporeal rights, such as aright of way, or of
common. What the law gives of common rights is not the subject of
prescription. Blackstone. Cruise. Kent. In Scotch law, prescription
is employed in the sense in which limitation is used in England and
America, namely, to express that operation of the lapse of time by
which obligations are extinguished or title protected. Sir T. Craig.
Erskine.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition