nostrum
nos·trum (näs′trəm)
noun
- a medicine prepared by the person selling it
- a patent medicine of a kind sold with exaggerated claims; quack medicine
- a pet scheme for solving some social or political problem; panacea
Etymology: L, neut. of noster, ours (< nos, we: see us): ? so called from the seller's calling it “our” remedy
Converse of object
- accept: Human rights, in theory at least, have become an accepted nostrum throughout the world.
Adjective modifier
- simple: I am indebted to my brother ( in the other National Trust ) for this glaringly simple nostrum.
- neo-liberal: In Indonesia the state followed the very latest neo-liberal nostrums.
- fashionable: In such a society, what use to the common people is the fashionable nostrum of writing off foreign debt?
Noun used with modifier
- quack: James is put to work at country fairs, promoting a quack nostrum for pain relief.
Never under the most despotic of infidel Governments did I behold such squalid wretchedness as I have seen since my return, in the very heart of a Christian country. And what are your remedies? After months of inaction, and months of action worse than inactivity, at length comes forth the grand specificöthe never-failing nostrum of all state physicians from the days of Draco to the present time; death. Is there not blood enough upon your penal code that more must be poured forth to ascend to Heaven and testify against you?
Browse dictionary entries near nostrum
- nostril
- Nostratic
- Nostradamus
- nostomania
- nostology
- nostoc
- nostalgist
- nostalgie de la boue
- nostalgic
- nostalgia
- nosy
- Nosy Parker
- not
- not a little
- not always
- not at all
- not completely
- not entirely
- not especially
- not-for-profit
