patent medicine

1. 1.

   medicine that is protected by a patent and available without a doctor's prescription

   Broadermedicine

   Narrowernostrum

Questions about patent medicine

What does patent medicine mean?

patent medicine means "medicine that is protected by a patent and available without a doctor's prescription".

Is patent medicine a common word?

patent medicine is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.