prescription Meaning, Definition & Usage

noun directions prescribed beforehand; the action of prescribing authoritative rules or directions
- I tried to follow her prescription for success
noun a drug that is available only with written instructions from a doctor or dentist to a pharmacist
prescription medicine; prescription drug; ethical drug.
- he told the doctor that he had been taking his prescription regularly
noun written instructions for an optician on the lenses for a given person
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
adjective available only with a doctor's written prescription
- a prescription drug

F. prescription, L. praescriptio,an inscription, preface, precept, demurrer, prescription (in sense 3), fr. praescribere. See Prescribe.

The act of prescribing, directing, or dictating; direction; precept; also, that which is prescribed.
(Med.) A direction of a remedy or of remedies for a disease, and the manner of using them; a medical recipe; also, a prescribed remedy.
(Law) 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.
✍ 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.