Part 502

Dryden.

2. (Med.) To direct, as a remedy to be used by a patient; as, the doctor prescribed quinine.

Syn. -- To appoint; order; command; dictate; ordain; institute; establish.

Pre*scribe", v. i. 1. To give directions; to dictate.

A forwardness to prescribe to their opinions.

Locke.

2. To influence by long use [Obs.] Sir T. Browne.

3. (Med.) To write or to give medical directions; to indicate remedies; as, to prescribe for a patient in a fever.

4. (Law) To claim by prescription; to claim a title to a thing on the ground of immemorial use and enjoyment, that is, by a custom having the force of law.

Pre*scrib"er (?), n. One who prescribes.

Pre"script (?), a. [L. praescriptus, p. p. of praescribere: cf. F. prescrit. See Prescribe.] Directed; prescribed. " A prescript from of words." Jer. Taylor.

Pre"script, n. [L. praescriptum: cf. OF. prescript.]

1. Direction; precept; model prescribed. Milton.

2. A medical prescription. [Obs.] Bp. Fell.

Pre*scrip`ti*bil"i*ty (?), n. The quality or state of being prescriptible. Story.

Pre*scrip"ti*ble (pr*skrp"t*b'l), a. [Cf. F. prescriptible.] Depending on, or derived from, prescription; proper to be prescribed. Grafton.

Pre*scrip"tion (-shn), n. [F. prescription, L. praescriptio, an inscription, preface, precept, demurrer, prescription (in sense 3), fr. praescribere. See Prescribe.]

1. The act of prescribing, directing, or dictating; direction; precept; also, that which is prescribed.

2. (Med.) A direction of a remedy or of remedies for a disease, and the manner of using them; a medical recipe; also, a prescribed remedy.

3. (Law) A prescribing for title; the claim of title to a thing by virtue of immemorial use and enjoyment; the right or title acquired by possession had during the time and in the manner fixed by law. Bacon.

That profound reverence for law and prescription which has long been characteristic of Englishmen.

Macaulay.

Prescription differs from custom, which is a local usage, while prescription is personal, annexed to the person only. Prescription only extends to incorporeal rights, such as aright of way, or of common. What the law gives of common rights is not the subject of prescription. Blackstone. Cruise. Kent. In Scotch law, prescription is employed in the sense in which limitation is used in England and America, namely, to express that operation of the lapse of time by which obligations are extinguished or title protected. Sir T. Craig. Erskine.

Pre*scrip"tive (?), a. [L. praescriptivus of a demurrer or legal exception.] (Law) Consisting in, or acquired by, immemorial or long-continued use and enjoyment; as, a prescriptive right of title; pleading the continuance and authority of long custom.

The right to be drowsy in protracted toil has become prescriptive.

J. M. Mason.

Pre*scrip"tive*ly, adv. By prescription.

||Pre*scu"tum (?), n.; pl. Prescuta (&?;). [NL. See PrÊ-, and Scutum.] ||(Zoˆl.) The first of the four pieces composing the dorsal part, or ||tergum, of a thoracic segment of an insect. It is usually small and ||inconspicuous.