prescription

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)A written order from an authorized medical practitioner for provision of a medicine or other treatment, such as (ophthalmology) the specific lenses needed for a pair of glasses.

   “The surgeon had written thousands of prescriptions for pain killers without proper examinations before the police raided the clinic.”

   “An old traditional prescription for provoking erotic inclinations ran as follows, The toe of the foot of a man, anointed with oil, or honey, or the ashes of a weasel.”

2. (countable, uncountable)The medicine or treatment provided by such an order.

   “I need you to pick up gramma's prescriptions on your way home.”

   “"Oh, yes; she is the only sort of person for a nurse. She always," cried Lady Anne, with a sneer, "comes to you with a receipt for a pudding in one hand to make you ill, and then a prescription in the other to cure you."”

3. (countable, figuratively, uncountable)Any plan of treatment or handling; the treatment or handling thus provided.

   “Early to bed and early to rise is a prescription for a long, healthy, and terrible life.”

   “Change is the universal prescription for a wounded spirit. "It will do you so much good," is the constant remark.”

   “...looking at him I saw that I had been wrong in my prescription, if not in my diagnosis, and that the whisky was working against us.”

4. (countable, uncountable)Synonym of enactment, the act of establishing a law, regulation, etc., particularly in writing; an instance of this.

   “A statute that cannot find justification for its prescription in one or more of these principles violates international law.”

5. (countable, uncountable)The act of establishing or formalizing ideal norms for language use, as opposed to describing the actual norms of such use; an instance of this.
6. (countable, uncountable)An established time period within which a right must be exercised and after which it is null and permanently unenforceable.
7. (countable, uncountable)An established time period after which a person who has uninterruptedly, peacefully, and publicly used another's property acquires full ownership of it.
8. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)Synonym of self-restraint, limiting of one's actions especially according to a moral code or social conventions.

   “There is an air of prescription about him which is always agreeable to Sir Leicester; he receives it as a kind of tribute.”