administer

• administre (obsolete)

From Middle English administren, 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.

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 15, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, OCLC 1069526323:

     A noxious drug had been administered to him.

2. (transitive) To apportion out, distribute.
   • 1708, John Philips, Cyder, book I, London: J. Tonson, page 3:

     [Let zephyrs] administer their tepid, genial airs.

   • 1712 September 17 (Gregorian calendar)​, Joseph Addison, “SATURDAY, September 6, 1712”, in The Spectator, number 477; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume V, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, OCLC 191120697:

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

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, OCLC 1069526323:

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

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.
   • 1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], epistle 3, London: Printed for J[ohn] Wilford, […], OCLC 960856019:

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

   • 2006, Rongxing Guo, Territorial Disputes and Resource Management: A Global Handbook‎, →ISBN, OCLC 148587195, page 224:

     Located in the northwestern side of the Black Sea, Snake Island, or called ostriv Zmiyinyy in Ukrainian and Insula Serpilor in Romanian, is currently administered by Ukraine but claimed by Romania.

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 give, as an oath.
   • 1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The life and death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act I, scene iii]:

     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.

• 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/, [äd̪mɪˈnɪs̠t̪ɛr]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ad.miˈnis.ter/, [äd̪miˈnist̪er]

administer m (genitive administrī, feminine administra); second declension

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

Second-declension noun (nominative singular in -er).

• administra
• administrō

• “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