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A Theriac for What Ails You
There really is no such thing as a single remedy for all that ails us. But that hasn't kept English speakers from creating not just a single word, but several words, that mean "cure-all": catholicon, elixir, nostrum, panacea, and theriac. When we first used theriac, it meant "an antidote for poison"—for any and all poisons, that is. That's how our Roman and Greek forebears used their theriaca and thēriakē, which derive ultimately from thēr, the Greek word for "wild animal." The first theriac was supposedly created by the first-century Greek physician Andromachus, whose concoction consisted of some 70 drugs pulverized with honey. Medieval physicians created even more elaborate theriacs to dose a plague-dreading populace, for whom the possibility of a cure-all didn't seem too wild a notion at all.
Examples of theriac in a Sentence
Elizabeth Heath, Discover Magazine, 15 Feb. 2023
But with its long list of as many as 80 ingredients and high status, theriac was expensive and exclusive.
—Elizabeth Heath, Discover Magazine, 15 Feb. 2023
Zinc lozenges suddenly became the theriac to cure all ills; masks and hand-sanitizer, the ambergris and zedoary to ward off infection.
—Spencer Strub, The New York Review of Books, 25 Mar. 2020
Dictionary Entries Near theriac
Cite this Entry
“Theriac.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theriac. Accessed 3 Dec. 2024.
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theriac
noun
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