where did the word medicine come from

Quick Scoop: medicine comes from Latin medicina , meaning “the healing art” or “a remedy,” and that Latin word is tied to mederi , “to heal.”

Origin

The English word entered through Old French medecine and Middle English, so its path was roughly Latin → Old French → English.

Root meaning

The deeper root is commonly traced to the Proto-Indo-European base med- , which carries the sense of “to take appropriate measures,” fitting the idea of careful treatment and healing.

In plain terms

So the word originally meant something like “the art of healing,” not just a pill or a drug.

TL;DR: medicine started as a Latin word for healing and remedies, then passed into English through French.