administer

• administre (obsolete)

From Middle English admynistren, from Old French aminister, from Latin administrare (“to manage, execute”), from ad (“to”) + ministrare (“to attend, serve”), from minister (“servant”); see minister.

• (US) IPA^(key): /ədˈmɪnɪstɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

administer (third-person singular simple present administers, present participle administering, simple past and past participle administered)

1. (transitive) To cause to ingest (a drug), either by openly offering or through deceit.

   We administered the medicine to our dog by mixing it in his food.

   • Macaulay

     A noxious drug had been administered to him.

2. (transitive) To apportion out.
   • Spectator

     A fountain […] administers to the pleasure as well as the plenty of the place.

   • Macaulay

     Justice was administered with an exactness and purity not before known.

   • Philips

     [Let zephyrs] administer their tepid, genial airs.

3. (transitive) To manage or supervise the conduct, performance or execution of; to govern or regulate the parameters for the conduct, performance or execution of; to work in an administrative capacity.
   • Alexander Pope

     For forms of government let fools contest: / Whate'er is best administered is best.

4. (intransitive) To minister (to).

   administering to the sick

5. (law) To settle, as the estate of one who dies without a will, or whose will fails of an executor.
6. To tender, as an oath.
   • Shakespeare

     Swear […] to keep the oath that we administer.

7. (medicine) To give a drug to a patient, be it orally or by any other means.

• administration
• administrative
• administrator

• administer in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• administer in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

• administre, mistrained, nitramides

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ad.miˈnis.ter/, [ad.mɪˈnɪs.tɛr]

administer m (genitive administri); second declension

1. assistant, helper, supporter
2. attendant
3. priest, minister

Second declension, nominative singular in -er.

• administer in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• administer in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• administer in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette