Patrick McGrathWarren Sloat
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"Whether there was real efficacy in these nostrums, and whether their author himself had faith in them, is more than can safely be said," wrote 19th-century American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, "but, at all events, the public believed in them." The word nostrum has often been linked to quack medicine and false hopes for miracle cures, but there's nothing deceitful about its etymology. It has been a part of English since at least the early 17th century, and it comes from the Latin noster, meaning "our" or "ours." Some think that specially prepared medicinal concoctions came to be called nostrums because their purveyors marketed them as "our own" remedy. In other words, the use of nostrum emphasized that such a potion was unique or exclusive to the pitchman peddling it.
Examples of nostrum in a Sentence
Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 8 May 2025
Eight years later, Democrats have devolved into nostrums about appealing to the middle class, ditching academic language, and finding a uniting message.
—Alexander Nazaryan, Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, 21 Mar. 2025
Turning the pope’s election into a trans referendum Hidden within the fake pomp and banal compositions of Conclave is a litany of left-wing nostrums, spoken by fictitious characters during the election of a new pope.
—Armond White, National Review, 19 Feb. 2025
That’s because the agency’s duty is to stand in the way of businesses desiring to push unsafe and ineffective nostrums at unwary consumers, and also in the way of a perverse idea that personal freedom includes the freedom to be gulled by charlatans.
—Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 17 Jan. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Nostrum.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nostrum. Accessed 23 May. 2025.
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nostrum
noun
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