Pre*scrip"tion (-shŭn), n. [F.
prescription, L. praescriptio, an inscription, preface,
precept, demurrer, prescription (in sense 3), fr. praescribere.
See Prescribe.]
1. The act of prescribing, directing, or
dictating; direction; precept; also, that which is
prescribed.
2. (Med.) A direction of a remedy or of
remedies for a disease, and the manner of using them; a medical
recipe; also, a prescribed remedy.
3. (Law) A prescribing for title; the
claim of title to a thing by virtue of immemorial use and enjoyment;
the right or title acquired by possession had during the time and in
the manner fixed by law. Bacon.
That profound reverence for law and prescription
which has long been characteristic of Englishmen.
Macaulay.
&fist; Prescription differs from custom, which is a
local usage, while prescription is personal, annexed to the
person only. Prescription only extends to incorporeal rights,
such as aright of way, or of common. What the law gives of common
rights is not the subject of prescription.
Blackstone. Cruise. Kent. In Scotch law,
prescription is employed in the sense in which
limitation is used in England and America, namely, to express
that operation of the lapse of time by which obligations are
extinguished or title protected. Sir T. Craig.
Erskine.
