Etymologically
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remedy

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈɹɛmədi/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English remedie, borrowed from Anglo-Norman remedie,[2][3][4] a variant of Old French remede (modern remède), and partly directly borrowed from Latin remedium (“medicine, cure, means of relief”),[4][5][6] formed from re-, here probably intensive, and the stem of medeor (“to heal”),[6][3][7] from Proto-Indo-European *med- (“to take appropriate measures”).[6][2] It is thus related to medicine and medical.[8][9] The verb is Middle English remedien, from Middle French remedier and remediō, and partly formed from the noun.[4][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A way of countering sin or temptation: about 1225, in the Ancrene Riwle.[4][5][6]

Semantic evolution

In the earliest English texts a remedy was a means of avoiding sin, evil or a hard situation;[4] Ayto notes the extension from "medicine" to "something that corrects a wrong" in the Latin word itself.[4][8] The medical sense, a cure for a disease, appears in the Wycliffite Bible (before 1382),[4][6] and the legal sense, a means of redress, in Chaucer (about 1390).[4][6] From 1423 it was the small margin of tolerance allowed in the weight and fineness of minted coins,[4][7] and at some English schools (Winchester, St Paul's) a remedy was a holiday granted for recreation.[4] Johnson (1755) defined it first as a medicine that cures an illness.[11] The proverb the remedy is worse than the disease is recorded from Bacon (1612).[4]

Timeline

  • c. 1225 – a means of countering sin or difficulty.[4][5]
  • before 1382 – a cure for a disease.[4][6]
  • c. 1390 – legal redress, in Chaucer.[4]
  • c. 1400 – verb: to cure, to put right.[6][5]
  • 1423 – the tolerance allowed in coinage.[4][7]
  • c. 1450 – a school holiday.[4]
  • 1612 – the remedy is worse than the disease, in Bacon.[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A medicine or treatment that cures or relieves an illness: an old herbal remedy for headaches.
  2. Something that corrects a fault or puts a bad situation right.
  3. (law) A means of obtaining redress or compensation through the courts.
  4. (coinage) The permitted variation from standard weight or fineness in minted coins.

Verb

  1. To put right or correct something: steps were taken to remedy the shortage.
  2. (now rare) To cure or relieve a disease.

Word family

  • remediless
  • unremedied

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  3. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  10. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.