English

Noun

nostrum ‎(plural nostrums or nostra)

1. A medicine or remedy in conventional use which has not been proven to have any desirable medical effects.
   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Book V, chapter ii

     Nay, he would sometimes retire hither to take his beer, and it was not without difficulty that he was prevented from forcing Jones to take his beer too: for no quack ever held his nostrum to be a more general panacea than he did this; which, he said, had more virtue in it than was in all the physic in an apothecary's shop.

   • 1890, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four

     I stammered out some few halting words of congratulation and then sat downcast, with my head drooped, deaf to the babble of our new acquaintance. He was clearly a confirmed hypochondriac, and I was dreamily conscious that he was pouring forth interminable trains of symptoms, and imploring information as to the composition and action of innumerable quack nostrums, some of which he bore about in a leather case in his pocket.

2. An ineffective but favorite remedy for a problem, usually involving political action.
   • 2009, A.C. Grayling, Ideas That Matter: A Personal Guide for the 21st Century:

     Neocons have far more interest in foreign policy than domestic policy. As regards the latter the reflex nostrums of right-wing attitudes apply: less tax, less government, libertarianism about matters such as gun control, encouragement of individual responsibility in health care and education, 'faith-based solutions' to social and welfare problems, and so forth.

   • 2011, Sean Corrigan, The Wasteland:

     With the glaring failure to predict even the possibility - much less circumstance - of the recent Crash and with the even more foreseeable failure of its tired old, rehashed nostrums of ending the slump by means of an inequitable programme of corporate welfare, inflationary "unorthodoxy", and the unleashing of the debt-spewing monster of the state to gorge itself upon such things as individuals and private concerns no longer care to consumer, it should hardly be controversial to asset that mainstream macroeconomics - and the reputations of the many panderers to power who practice it - are equally broken.

Coordinate terms

• cure-all
• panacea
• patent medicine
• snake oil

See also

• placebo

Translations

See also

• nostrum on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈnos.trum/, [ˈnɔs.trũ]

Etymology 1

Inflected form of nōs ‎(“we”).

Pronoun

nostrum

1. of us; partitive genitive of nōs

Alternative forms

• nostrī (objective genitive)

Etymology 2

Inflected form of noster ‎(“our, ours”).

Pronoun

nostrum

1. nominative neuter singular of noster
2. accusative masculine singular of noster
3. accusative neuter singular of noster
4. vocative neuter singular of noster

Descendants

• English: nostrum