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  1. nostrum love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A medicine whose effectiveness is unproved and whose ingredients are usually secret; a quack remedy.
  2. n. A favorite but usually ineffective remedy for problems or evils.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A medicine the ingredients of which, and the method of compounding them, are kept secret, for the purpose of restricting the profits of sale to the inventor or proprietor; especially, a quack medicine.
  2. n. Hence Any scheme or device of a quack or charlatan.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A medicine or remedy in conventional use which has not been proven to have any desirable medical effects.
  2. n. An ineffective but favorite remedy for a problem, usually involving political action.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. A medicine, the ingredients of which are kept secret for the purpose of restricting the profits of sale to the inventor or proprietor; a quack medicine.
  2. n. Any scheme or device proposed by a quack.
  3. n. Any scheme asserted to solve a problem, but with no objective basis for belief in its effectiveness; esp., in politics, a scheme or proposal likely to prove popular with voters.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. hypothetical remedy for all ills or diseases; once sought by the alchemists
  2. n. patent medicine whose efficacy is questionable

Etymologies

  1. From Latin nostrum ("ours"), nominative neuter of noster ("our, ours"). (Wiktionary)
  2. From Latin nostrum (remedium), our (remedy), neuter of noster; see nes-2 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

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Lists

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Comments

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  • yarb Citation on crawler. Sep 18, 2008

  • cosmican Meaning: A usually questionable remedy or scheme ; panacea Nov 19, 2007

  • cosmican This experiment is an ineffective nostrum. Nov 19, 2007

  • trivet snake oil Apr 19, 2007

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‘nostrum’ has been looked up 3716 times, loved by 6 people, added to 106 lists, commented on 4 times, and has a Scrabble score of 9.