Word.ws English Dictionary

theriaque

theriaque 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 theriaque

What is theriaque the alternative spelling of?
Theriaque is the alternative spelling of theriac.

Words near theriaque in the dictionary

  1. therianthropes
  2. therianthropic
  3. therianthropism
  4. therianthropy
  5. theriantrope
  6. theriaque
  7. theriatrics
  8. Theriault
  9. Theriaults
  10. theridiid
  11. theridiids

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: theriaque (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.

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