medicinal

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English medicinal, also medecinal,^[2] partly borrowed from Anglo-Norman medicinal (“healing, curative”), also Middle French medecinal (modern French médicinal), and partly directly borrowed from Latin medicīnālis (“of or relating to medicine”),^[3][4][5] from medicīna (“the healing art; a remedy”) with the suffix -ālis.^[3][6][7] The Anglo-Norman adjective is recorded from 1326 for "healing", and already in the late 12th century of a medical book; in Old French it was first a noun meaning a remedy.^[3] The OED compares Old Occitan medecinal and Italian medicinale.^[3] Etymonline suggests that medicīna is short for a phrase meaning “the medical art”, with the feminine of medicīnus (“of a doctor”), from medicus (“a physician”), from Proto-Indo-European *med- (“to take appropriate measures”).^[4] The noun medicine has the same Latin source.^[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Healing, curative, used as a medicine: before 1384, in the early version of the Wycliffite Bible.^[3] Etymonline dates it to the mid-14th century, and Dictionary.com to 1300–50.^[4][8]

Semantic evolution

Already in Latin, medicīnālis had been used from the 5th century of spiritual healing,^[3] and the Wycliffite Bible used medicinal figuratively about 1400, of something spiritually wholesome or edifying.^[3][2] The sense "relating to the science or practice of medicine" followed before 1387, in Trevisa,^[3][2] but it has been taken over by medical: Merriam-Webster marks it archaic.^[6] From 1603 to 1868 a medicinal day or period was one in which medicines could safely or best be given;^[3] Johnson (1755) explained medicinal days in this way.^[9] A taste or smell that recalls medicine has been called medicinal since 1824.^[3] As a noun, medicinals were matters of medicine in the 17th century, and since 1667 a medicinal has been a medicinal substance.^[3][6]

Timeline

• 1326 – Anglo-Norman medicinal, healing.^[3]
• before 1384 – healing, curative (Wycliffite Bible).^[3]
• before 1387 – relating to the science of medicine (Trevisa).^[3]
• c. 1400 – figuratively, spiritually wholesome.^[3]
• 1603 – of a time in which medicine is best given (obsolete by 1868).^[3]
• 1667 – noun, a medicinal substance.^[3]
• 1824 – of a taste or smell, like that of a medicine.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Able to cure disease or relieve pain; used as a remedy: Willow bark was valued for its medicinal properties.^[6][10][3]
2. Having a wholesome or beneficial effect.^[6][3]
3. Of a taste or smell, like that of a medicine.^[3][5]
4. (archaic) Of or relating to the practice of medicine; medical.^[6][3]

Noun

1. A medicinal substance; a medicine.^[6][10][3]

Word family

• medicinally
• nonmedicinal
• semimedicinal
• unmedicinal

Related words

• medical
• medication
• medicine

Usage notes

Johnson (1755) noted that the word was then commonly stressed on the second syllable, medícinal, but that the authorities preferred medicínal.^[9] Merriam-Webster still records such older pronunciations as archaic,^[6] and the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary lists the variant /medˈɪs-/ beside /məˈdɪs-/.^[11]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b 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
11. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press