prescription

noun8

1. •
   a doctor's written order that lets someone get the medicine or glasses they need

   • The surgeon had written thousands of prescriptions for pain killers without proper examinations before the police raided the clinic.
2. •
   (figurative) Any plan of treatment or handling; the treatment or handling thus provided.

   • Early to bed and early to rise is a prescription for a long, healthy, and terrible life.
3. •
   The medicine or treatment provided by such an order.

   • I need you to pick up gramma's prescriptions on your way home.
4. •
   The act of establishing or formalizing ideal norms for language use, as opposed to describing the actual norms of such use; an instance of this.
5. •
   Synonym of enactment, the act of establishing a law, regulation, etc., particularly in writing; an instance of this.

   • A statute that cannot find justification for its prescription in one or more of these principles violates international law. — 1997
6. •
   An established time period within which a right must be exercised and after which it is null and permanently unenforceable.
7. •
   An established time period after which a person who has uninterruptedly, peacefully, and publicly used another's property acquires full ownership of it.
8. •
   (no longer used) Synonym of self-restraint, limiting of one's actions especially according to a moral code or social conventions.

   • There is an air of prescription about him which is always agreeable to Sir Leicester; he receives it as a kind of tribute. — 1852