medicament

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French medicament (modern French médicament), recorded in Old French from 1314, or directly borrowed from Latin medicāmentum (“a curative substance, remedy”),^[2][3][4][5] which is formed from medicor (“to heal, cure”) and the suffix -mentum,^[2][6][7] from medicus (“physician; healing”),^[3] from Proto-Indo-European *med- (“to take appropriate measures”).^[3] Klein reads the Latin noun literally as "means of healing".^[6] The OED compares Italian medicamento, from before 1276, Spanish medicamento, from 1490, and German Medikament.^[2] It is related to medicate, medicine and medical.^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A substance used in medical treatment; a medicine or remedy: about 1440, in an English translation of Palladius on agriculture.^[2] Etymonline also dates the word to the mid-15th century,^[3] while Dictionary.com gives 1535–45.^[8]

Semantic evolution

From before 1525 to 1558 the word also meant medical treatment or the skill of healing, a sense Etymonline dates to the mid-15th century.^[2][3] An extended use, for anything that heals or remedies, is recorded from 1614,^[2] and Johnson (1755) quoted Hammond for the milder medicaments of rebuke that come before stronger church censures; he defined the word as anything used in healing, generally applied to the surface of the body.^[9] Thackeray used a verb medicament, to give medicines to someone, in 1850.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1440 – a medicine, a remedy.^[2]
• before 1525 – medical treatment, skill in healing (obsolete by 1558).^[2]
• 1614 – in extended use, a remedy for something.^[2]
• 1850 – verb, to give medicines to a person.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A substance used to treat illness, such as a medicine, a chemical or an ointment, especially in a specified preparation.^[7][10][2]
2. (obsolete, 1525–1558) Medical treatment, or skill in healing.^[2][3]

Verb

1. (rare) To treat someone with medicaments.^[7][2]

Word family

• medicamentous

Related words

• medicate
• medicine
• medical
• remedy

Usage notes

The word is stressed on either the first or the second syllable.^[2][10] The OED notes that stress on the first syllable is found in Johnson and most 19th-century dictionaries, while stress on the second seems to be first recorded in the late 19th century.^[2]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins