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Definition of "panacea" []

  • A remedy for all diseases, evils, or difficulties; a cure-all. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "panacea" in a sentence
  • "Panax, the genus name, comes from the Latin word panacea, meaning “cure-all,” and indeed, the claims for ginseng, of which scientists have historically been skeptical, imply a near-miraculous ability to address a wide variety of problems."
  • "But education, which we speak of as a panacea for all ills, only deals with what it finds, and does not, as we ought to claim, rub down bad points and accentuate good, and it is this, that perhaps more than anything else has made me a Determinist, that the very capacity for change and improvement is so native to some characters, and so utterly lacking to others."
  • "Printing money may sound attractive to the desperate, but it is at best a short-term panacea, which solves nothing in the long run, and creates its own set of complications and economic distortions."