dose

Meanings

Noun

• A measured portion of medicine taken at any one time.
• The quantity of an agent (not always active) substance or radiation administered or experienced at any one time.
• Anything disagreeable that must be taken. as in have one's fill.
• A good measure or lengthy experience of something.
• A venereal infection.

Verb

• To administer a dose to.
• To prescribe a dose.
• To transmit a venereal disease.

Origin

• Borrowed from Middle French dose, from Late Latin dosis, from Ancient Greek δόσις ("a portion prescribed"), used by Galen and other Greek physicians to mean an amount of medicine, from δίδωμι. doos.