Succedaneum
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A substitute, replacement for something else, particularly of a medicine used in place of another.
"It is not your purses that suffer; your farm-rents, your commerces, your mill-revenues, loud as ye lament over these; no, it is not these alone, but a far deeper than these: it is your Souls that lie dead, crushed down under despicable Nightmares, Atheisms, Brain-fumes; and are not Souls at all, but mere succedanea for salt to keep your bodies and their appetites from putrefying!"
- 2 (medicine) something that can be used as a substitute (especially any medicine that may be taken in place of another) wordnet
Example
More examples"It is not your purses that suffer; your farm-rents, your commerces, your mill-revenues, loud as ye lament over these; no, it is not these alone, but a far deeper than these: it is your Souls that lie dead, crushed down under despicable Nightmares, Atheisms, Brain-fumes; and are not Souls at all, but mere succedanea for salt to keep your bodies and their appetites from putrefying!"
Etymology
Modern Latin, neuter singular of Latin succēdāneus (“acting as substitute”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.