Word.ws English Dictionary

℞

℞ symbol: a prescription.

℞: a prescription
Image: Psiĥedelisto, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Symbol

℞

  1. (Canada, Philippines, US, pharmacy) A prescription.
  2. (pharmacy) Take (used to begin a list of ingredients of a compound).
    • BOlvs in Engliſh is called a morſell. It is a medicine laxatiue, in forme & faſhion it is meanely whole, & it is ſwallowed by litle gobbets. […] ℞. medulla caſiæ fiſtulæ newly drawen. ℥. j. or ʒ. x. the graines (that is the kernelles) of barbaries. ℈. ß. and with ſugar roſet [sugar compounded with...1583, Philip Barrough [i.e., Philip Barrow], “Of Making Bolus”, in The Methode of Phisicke, Conteyning the Causes, Signes, and Cures of Inward Diseases in Mans Body from the Head to the Foote. […]...
  3. Marks the congregation's response to the versicle.
    Synonyms:
    ℟, R
  4. Retrograde.

Synonyms of ℞

  • ℟
  • R

Forms of ℞

alternative formRx
alternative formr.
alternative form℟

Origin of ℞

An R with a cross-stroke indicating an abbreviation (of recipe, response, retrograde etc). In the case of a prescription, abbreviating Latin recipe (“take this”, second-person singular imperative of recipiō); it is sometimes typeset as, or even interpreted as, a digraph Rx. Compare also Dx (“diagnose, diagnosis”) and Hx (“history”).

Questions about ℞

What does ℞ mean?
℞ means a prescription.
What part of speech is ℞?
℞ is a symbol.

Words near ℞ in the dictionary

  1. ℅
  2. № 2 pencil
  3. № 2 pencils
  4. ℝ-order tree
  5. ℝ-order trees
  6. ℞
  7. ℻
  8. ∆
  9. ∆s
  10. ◌̀
  11. ◌́

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ℞ (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “℞.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/%E2%84%9E. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.