nostrum

noun

nos·​trum ˈnä-strəm 

1

: a medicine of secret composition recommended by its preparer but usually without scientific proof of its effectiveness

… is put to work at county fairs, promoting a quack nostrum for pain relief.

—Patrick McGrath

2

: a usually questionable remedy or scheme : panacea

an audience eager to believe he had found the nostrum for all of society's ills

—Warren Sloat

Did you know?

"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.

Synonyms

• catholicon
• cure-all
• elixir
• panacea
• theriac

Examples of nostrum in a Sentence

politicians repeating all the usual nostrums about the economy

using garlic as a nostrum to prevent disease

Recent Examples on the Web

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

Population trends today should raise serious questions about all the old nostrums that humans are somehow hard-wired to replace themselves to continue the species. —Nicholas Eberstadt, Foreign Affairs, 10 Oct. 2024

Word History

Etymology

Latin, neuter of noster our, ours, from nos we — more at us

First Known Use

1602, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Phrases Containing nostrum

• mare nostrum

Rhymes for nostrum

• rostrum
• colostrum

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Medical Definition

nostrum

noun

nos·​trum ˈnäs-trəm 

: a medicine of secret composition recommended by its preparer but usually without scientific proof of its effectiveness