Prescription - Definition and Overview

Prescription has various meanings.

• Generally, a prescription is a statement that someone ought to do or not to do something.
• A medical prescription is an order by a medical doctor to a pharmacist for a drug to be provided to the doctor's patient.
• A eyeglass prescription is an order by an opthamologist to an optician for eyeglasses.
• Under the civil law or civil code prescriptions are those periods during which rights and obligations are legally enforceable. Similar to the common law system concept of limitation periods.
• In linguistics, prescription is the laying down or prescribing of normative rules of the language.