Etymologically
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medicinal

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Pronunciation

  • /məˈdɪ.sɪ.nəl/, /-sə-/[1]

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

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