Both Uses
prescribe
in
Politics and the English Language
(Auto-generated)
- —PROFESSOR HAROLD LASKI (Essay in FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION) (2) Above all, we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which prescribes such egregious collocations of vocables as the Basic PUT UP WITH for TOLERATE or PUT AT A LOSS for BEWILDER.†
*prescribes = recommends or requires what should be done OR (of a medical doctor) gives medical instructions -- such as writing that a patient should take antibiotics
- Professor Hogben (2) plays ducks and drakes with a battery which is able to write prescriptions, and, while disapproving of the everyday phrase PUT UP WITH, is unwilling to look EGREGIOUS up in the dictionary and see what it means.†
prescriptions = recommendations or requirements OR (from a medical doctor) instructions -- such as writing that a patient should take antibiotics
Definitions:
-
(1)
(prescribe) to recommend or require what should be done
or more specifically:
of a medical doctor: to give medical instructions -- such as writing that a patient should take antibiotics - (2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)