prescribed

[ pri-skrahybd ]

adjective

1. dictated or indicated as a rule or course of action to be followed:

   To limit your definition of art to certain prescribed forms is to cut yourself off from the bulk of human existence.

2. Medicine/Medical. (of a medicine, treatment, etc.) recommended or ordered by a qualified practitioner:

   Test results for legal or prescribed drugs are returned in about two minutes.

verb

1. the simple past tense and past participle of prescribe ( def ).

Other Words From

• non·pre·scribed adjective
• self-pre·scribed adjective
• un·pre·scribed adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of prescribed¹

prescribe ( def ) + -ed ²( def )

Example Sentences

At a later date, all of the volunteers were given either a single dose of prescribed sodium-oxybate liquid medicine or a dummy or placebo.

From BBC

Prison itself is the punishment prescribed for those held in one.

From Los Angeles Times

Phages are exquisitely specific for their bacterial targets, and some treatments were prescribed for the wrong infections.

From Salon

This wild plant, whose seedlings proliferate after a fire, served as a vital food source of many of the region’s Indigenous people, who tended it with prescribed burns.

From Science Magazine

“There is real concern that ketamine is a drug of potential abuse, and there is very little regulation about how it is being prescribed and used,” Sanacora told Salon in a phone interview.

From Salon

Related Words

• arbitrary
• recommended