Word.ws English Dictionary

materia medica

materia medica noun: synonym of pharmacology, particularly its development in early modern Europe.

Noun (1)

materia medica (uncountable)

  1. (archaic, historical) Synonym of pharmacology, particularly its development in early modern Europe.
    • Later on, in the Middle Ages, medical knowledge advanced to such an extent that textbooks on materia medica and germane subjects often treated this area of erotica.1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 126
    Synonyms:
    pharmacology, particularly its development in early modern Europe

Noun (2)

materia medica pl (plural only)

  1. (archaic, historical, plural, plural-only) Synonym of medicine: the substances so used, particularly traditional cures prepared from animals and plants such as herbal medicines but inclusive of early drugs.
    • CHIAN earth, in pharmacy, one of the medicinal earths of the ancients, the name of which is preſerved in the catalogues of the materia medica but of which nothing more than the name has been known for many ages in the ſhops...1771, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1st ed., volume II, page 183
    • Mary Reynolds could list her physician-owner's entire materia medica (the common term for pharmacological supplies) for slaves in one breathː "Dr. Kilpatrick gave sick [slaves] ipecac and asafoetide and oil and turpentine and black fever pills."2008, Harriet A. Washington, “Southern Discomfort”, in Medical Apartheid, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, page 66
    Synonyms:
    medicine

materia medica meaning in Tamil

materia medica in Tamil

மருந்து சரக்காய்வு நூல், மருந்துப்பொருள் நூல்

Synonyms of materia medica

Origin of materia medica

From Latin māteria (“material”) + medica (“curative, medical”).

Questions about materia medica

What does materia medica mean?
Materia medica means synonym of pharmacology, particularly its development in early modern Europe.
What is materia medica in Tamil?
Materia medica in Tamil is மருந்து சரக்காய்வு நூல், மருந்துப்பொருள் நூல். See Materia medica meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is materia medica?
Materia medica is a noun.

Words near materia medica in the dictionary

  1. Matera
  2. Materan
  3. materfamilias
  4. materfamiliases
  5. materia
  6. materia medica
  7. materia prima
  8. materia subtilis
  9. material
  10. material action
  11. material breach

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: materia medica (page history and authors); materia medica (Tamil 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.

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Cite this entry: “materia medica.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/materia_medica. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.