Remedium

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Something that serves as a treatment or cure for an illness or problem
2. An agent or method used to correct or improve a harmful condition
3. A means to heal or fix a physical or metaphorical ailment

Etymology: "Remedium" is the Latin source of English "remedy," and it was built from two parts: the prefix "re-" meaning "back" or "again," and "mederi," meaning "to heal" or "to take care of." The verb "mederi" is also the root behind "medicine" and "meditate" in English, so a remedy is, at its core, a healing that works by restoring something to its former state. In Latin, "remedium" was used both for medicines and, more broadly, for any means of countering a harm or danger. Roman writers applied it to cures for illness, but also to solutions for misfortune and difficulty. That wider sense is what the modern meaning of an agent or method for correcting a harmful condition keeps. In English, the word arrived through Old French "remedie," which itself came from the Latin, and it has been used in English for centuries. The Latin form "remedium" is the classical spelling that scholars and dictionaries cite when tracing the English word back to its roots.