ELIXIR

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does elixir mean? 

• ELIXIR (noun)
  The noun ELIXIR has 3 senses:

1. a sweet flavored liquid (usually containing a small amount of alcohol) used in compounding medicines to be taken by mouth in order to mask an unpleasant taste

2. hypothetical substance that the alchemists believed to be capable of changing base metals into gold

3. a substance believed to cure all ills

  Familiarity information: ELIXIR used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ELIXIR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A sweet flavored liquid (usually containing a small amount of alcohol) used in compounding medicines to be taken by mouth in order to mask an unpleasant taste

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Hypernyms ("elixir" is a kind of...):

liquid (fluid matter having no fixed shape but a fixed volume)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Hypothetical substance that the alchemists believed to be capable of changing base metals into gold

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Synonyms:

elixir; philosopher's stone; philosophers' stone

Hypernyms ("elixir" is a kind of...):

substance (a particular kind or species of matter with uniform properties)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A substance believed to cure all ills

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Hypernyms ("elixir" is a kind of...):

catholicon; cure-all; nostrum; panacea (hypothetical remedy for all ills or diseases; once sought by the alchemists)

potion (a medicinal or magical or poisonous beverage)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "elixir"):

elixir of life (a hypothetical substance believed to maintain life indefinitely; once sought by alchemists)

 Context examples 

The form of the completed pharmaceutical product, e.g. tablet, capsule, injection, elixir, suppository.

(CDISC SDTM Pharmaceutical Dosage Form Terminology, NCI Thesaurus/CDISC)

The air of the moors, the freedom of home, the dawn of prosperity, acted on Diana and Mary's spirits like some life-giving elixir: they were gay from morning till noon, and from noon till night.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Under the guidance of my new preceptors I entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life; but the latter soon obtained my undivided attention.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The modern masters promise very little; they know that metals cannot be transmuted and that the elixir of life is a chimera but these philosophers, whose hands seem only made to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pore over the microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)