Other forms: doses
A dose is the measured amount of medicine you take at one time. The correct dose, a double dose, missed a dose.
Dosage is the schedule of doses rather than the single amount, and the two are often muddled. Overdose is too much, and a lethal dose is the amount that kills. In radiation, dose is a measure of absorbed energy. Figuratively, a dose is a quantity of anything, usually unwelcome: a dose of reality, a healthy dose of scepticism. Note like a dose of salts, an old British phrase meaning very quickly indeed.
1noundoseThe measured amount of medicine taken at one time.
“The dose was halved and it worked just as well.”
synonyms: dosage
2nounquantityA quantity of something, often unwelcome.
“It needs a dose of realism and about half the budget.”
dose is a measured amount.
Also accepted in games: dosage
Greek dosis means a giving or a portion given, from didonai, to give. The same root gives dative, dowry and anecdote, which literally means not given out — unpublished.
Proto-Indo-European
*deh₃-
Ancient Greek
δόσις — a portion prescribed
Latin
dosis
Middle French
dose
English, today
dose
Built from
Middle French dose, from Latin dosis, from Ancient Greek δόσις (“a portion prescribed”) literally “a giving”, used by Galen and other Greek physicians to mean an amount of medicine, from δίδωμι (“to give”). Mostly displaced English drench. a doublet of doos.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA