Word.ws English Dictionary

theriack

theriack is the alternative spelling of theriac.

Meaning of theriac

Noun

theriac (countable and uncountable, plural theriacs)

  1. (historical) A universal antidote against all poisons, particularly medicines considered to derive from a recipe of the Roman physician Andromachus and representing an improvement on mithridate.
    • This excellent triacle Methridatum is nexte in qualitye and virtue to Theriaca... but onely Theriaca is a little hotter and stronger againste venyme of Snakes.1558, William Bullein, The Government of Health, fol. 120
  2. (figuratively) A hyponym of panacea.
  3. (archaic) Synonym of antidote, particularly (pseudoscience) those incorporating snakemeat to cure snakebite.
    • ...ane half vnce of guid auld theriac...1568, Gilbert Skeyne, chapter 7, in Ane Breue Descriptioun of the Pest
  4. (obsolete) Synonym of molasses.
    Synonyms:
    molasses

See all 6 meanings of theriac

Questions about theriack

What is theriack the alternative spelling of?
Theriack is the alternative spelling of theriac.

Words near theriack in the dictionary

  1. theriaca
  2. theriacae
  3. theriacal
  4. theriacas
  5. theriace
  6. theriack
  7. theriacs
  8. therial
  9. therian
  10. therianism
  11. therians

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: theriack (page history and authors); theriac (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: “theriack.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/theriack. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.