Meditation is a practice of calming and focusing the mind. Medication is a drug used to treat an illness. Ten minutes of meditation; take your medication. One letter apart — a t and a c — and they sound almost identical in quick speech.
The core difference
- meditation — quiet, focused reflection; a practice of stilling the mind. Mindfulness meditation, a meditation retreat; also a written reflection, a meditation on loss.
- medication — a medicine, or the use of medicines. Blood-pressure medication, on medication, side effects of the medication.
The tell
Medication contains medic — a medic gives it. Meditation contains medit, from the Latin for "think over" — as in meditate. One is swallowed, the other is practised. If a doctor or pharmacist is in the sentence, the word is almost always medication.
In use
- meditation — She starts every day with twenty minutes of meditation. The essay is a meditation on grief.
- medication — Take the medication with food. He is on medication for his heart.
Common slips
- take your meditation twice a day → take your medication twice a day
- a mindfulness medication app → a mindfulness meditation app
Medication has the medic; meditation has the thinking.
Where the words come from
Meditation is from Latin meditari, "to think over, to rehearse", related to mederi "to attend to". Medication is from Latin medicari, "to heal", from medicus "physician" — and medicus too goes back to mederi. The two words are distant cousins that took opposite roads.
Frequently asked questions
Are meditation and medication related words?
Distantly. Both trace to Latin mederi, to attend to. One became thinking things over, the other healing.
Is meditation a treatment?
It is a practice some people find helps with stress. Anything to do with a medication — dose, timing, side effects — is a question for a doctor or pharmacist.
How do you tell them apart in speech?
Listen for the t: medi-TAY-tion. Medication has a hard c: medi-CAY-tion.