nostrum

Definition

A medicine or remedy in conventional use which has not been proven to have any desirable medical effects.

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin nostrum (“ours”), nominative neuter of noster (“our, ours”).

Example Sentences

• "Near-synonyms: paternoster, patent medicine, snake oil"
• "Nay, he would sometimes retire hither to take his beer, and it was not without difficulty that he was prevented from forcing Jones to take his beer too: for no quack ever held his nostrum to be a more general panacea than he did this; which, he said, had more virtue in it than was in all the physic in an apothecary's shop."
• "In precisely the same way does a quack doctor prescribe his infallible nostrum to every patient, without taking into account differences of constitution, or [...]"