antidotary
antidotary adjective: relating to or being an antidote, antidotal.
Adjective
antidotary (not comparable)
- Relating to or being an antidote, antidotal.
- A lerned man may hereby gathere that the doctore havyng an evil conscience […] poysoned hymself […] but, as it semeth by conjecture, receavyng suche chearefull message by poste from the commissyoners, wold have recovered hym selfe by medicyne, to late taken; for nuttes, rew, and fygges, ys a good...1579, John Louth, “Reminiscences”, in John Gough Nichols, Camden Society, editors, Narratives of the Days of the Reformation, published 1859, page 22
- It is a gross mistake to suppose that the apothecary’s shop contains a remedy for every disease, or that medical skill consists in prescribing an antidotary drug […]1838, Anthony Carlisle, Practical Observations on the Preservation of Health, and the Prevention of Diseases, London: John Churchill, Introductory Exposition, pp. xiv-xv
Noun
antidotary (plural antidotaries)
- An antidote.
- […] he saith that some Jasper stones are found having in them the livelie image of a naturall man, with a sheeld at his necke and a speare in his hand, and under his feete a serpent: which stones so marked and signed, he preferreth before all the rest, bicause they are antidotaries or remedies...1584, Reginald Scot, chapter 7, in Brinsley Nicholson, editor, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, London: Elliot Stock, published 1886, page 245
- A book of antidotes or pharmacological preparations.
- In the Antidotaries of the Ancients, we find a great many Physical Compositions which seem to be wholly design’d for the Liver […]1685, Thomas Willis, The London Practice of Physick, London: Thomas Basset et al., Part 2, Section 2, Chapter 2, p. 148
- Galen called all medicines administered internally, antidotes; thence, the word antidotary was for a long time employed synonymously with dispensary, or pharmacopœia.1851, Review of Pharmacy of the Greeks and Romans by M. Cap, translated by W.H. Cobb, Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery, Volume 7, Number 5, May 1851, p. 377
Forms of antidotary
| plural | antidotaries |
|---|
Origin of antidotary
From antidote + -ary.
Questions about antidotary
- What does antidotary mean?
- Antidotary means relating to or being an antidote, antidotal.
- What part of speech is antidotary?
- Antidotary can be an adjective or a noun.
Words near antidotary in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: antidotary (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.
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