dose
UK/ˈdəʊ̯s//ˈdoʊ̯s/
dose noun: a measured portion of medicine taken at any one time. Also the archaic form of doze.
Noun
dose (plural doses)
- A measured portion of medicine taken at any one time.
- Why did he give you only a single 500 mg dose? The correct dosage of this antibiotic is one 500 mg tablet twice a day for 10 days.
- The quantity of an agent (not always active), substance, or radiation administered or experienced at any one time.
- Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese[…]began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated. The poisoning was irreversible, and soon ended in psychosis and death. Nowadays workers are exposed to far lower doses and...2014 April 21, “Subtle effects”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8884
- Anything disagreeable that must be taken.
- Synonyms:
- fill
- A good measure or lengthy experience of something.
- a healthy dose of skepticism.
- “I had then, as you remember, just returned to London after a lot of Indian Ocean, Pacific, China Seas - a regular dose of the East - six years or so, and I was loafing about, hindering you fellows in your work and invading your homes, just as though I had got a heavenly mission to civilise you.”1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 197
- A venereal infection.
- Don't give a dose to the one you love most. / Give her some marmalade... give her some toast.1972, Shel Silverstein, “Don't Give A Dose to the One You Love Most”
- It would be very expensive to cure a dose here, as well as unbelievably painful.1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 382
- A cold; a common, viral illness of the nasal passage, sometimes with fever.
- There's a dose going round.
Verb
dose (third-person singular simple present doses, present participle dosing, simple past and past participle dosed)
- To administer a dose (of medicine) to.
- "She thought herself broad awake, and I have dosed her with an opiate."1871, George Meredith, The Adventures of Harry Richmond, page 270
- To prescribe a dose.
- To surreptitiously administer a dose of an incapacitating drug (to an unwilling subject); to roofie.
- The defense never conceded that their clients had administered chloral [hydrate], but Death and Campbell said initially—during their contested station house confessions—that McAlister had dosed [Jennie Bosschieter's] drink.2016, Pamela Donovan, Drink Spiking and Predatory Drugging: A Modern History, page 71
- To transmit a venereal disease to.
- Sometime back, one of your scarlet sisters dosed me proper.1977, The White Buffalo, Wild Bill Hickok
Also used as
dose is also the archaic form of doze.
dose meaning in Marathi, Urdu, Telugu and Malayalam
dose in Marathi
- डोस
dose in Urdu
- measured portion of medicine
- خوراک xorāk
dose in Telugu
- డోసు
dose in Malayalam
- ഡോസ്
More languagesFewer languages
- dose in Kannada
- ಡೋಸು, ಡೋಸ್
- dose in Punjabi
- ਡੋਜ਼
- dose in Gujarati
- ડોઝ
- dose in Odia
- ଡୋଜ
- dose in Assamese
- পালি pali
- dose in Nepali
- खुराक khurāk
- dose in Tagalog
- dosis
- dose in Arabic
- جُرْعَة jurʕa
- dose in Malay
- dos
- dose in Thai
- ขนาดยา
- dose in Vietnamese
- liều
Examples of dose in a sentence
- Nowadays workers are exposed to far lower doses and manganism is rare.2014 April 21, “Subtle effects”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8884:
- The prospect of becoming a father is a dose of reality that threatens to bring his dream world crashing down.2001, Susan Stryker, Queer Pulp, page 78:
- People who don't get their daily dose of light at the right time of day can end up with worse health.2025 December 9, Veronique Greenwood, “Your Bedroom Probably Isn't Dark Enough”, in TIME:
Synonyms of dose
Forms of dose
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | doses |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | doses |
| present participle | dosing |
| past participle | dosed |
| past | dosed |
Origin of dose
Borrowed from Middle French dose, from Late Latin dosis, from Ancient Greek δόσις (dósis, “a portion prescribed”, literally “a giving”), used by Galen and other Greek physicians to mean an amount of medicine, from δίδωμι (dídōmi, “to give”). Mostly displaced English drench. Doublet of doos.
Words formed from dose
- absorbed dose
- banana equivalent dose
- black dose
- booster dose
- committed dose
- dose dumping
- dose equivalent
- dosemeter
- dose of one's own medicine
- dose rate
- dosology
- effective dose
- elephant dose
- equivalent dose
- flight-time equivalent dose
- funny as a dose of the clap
- heroic dose
- hot dose
- interdose
- isodose
- lethal dose
- like a dose of salts
- low-dose CT scanning
- macrodose
- megadose
- metered-dose inhaler
- multidose
- paleodose
- postdose
- predose
- radiation dose
- semilethal dose
- the dose makes the poison
- under-dose
- underdose
- zero-dose
- doseable
- microdose
Words that rhyme with dose
Questions about dose
- What does dose mean?
- Dose means a measured portion of medicine taken at any one time.
- What is dose in Marathi?
- Dose in Marathi is डोस. See Dose meaning in Marathi.
- How do you use dose in a sentence?
- Nowadays workers are exposed to far lower doses and manganism is rare.
- What part of speech is dose?
- Dose can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce dose?
- Dose is pronounced /ˈdəʊ̯s/ (UK).
- What is the plural of dose?
- The plural of dose is doses.
Words near dose in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dose (page history and authors); dose (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); dose (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); dose (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); dose (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); dose (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); dose (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); dose (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-dose.ogg.
Cite this entry: “dose.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dose. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.