doctor

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A person, especially a physician, dentist, or veterinarian, trained in the healing arts and licensed to practice.
2. n. A person who has earned the highest academic degree awarded by a college or university in a specified discipline.
3. n. A person awarded an honorary degree by a college or university.
4. n. Used as a title and form of address for a person holding the degree of doctor.
5. n. Roman Catholic Church An eminent theologian.
6. n. A practitioner of folk medicine or folk magic.
7. n. A rig or device contrived for remedying an emergency situation or for doing a special task.
8. n. Any of several brightly colored artificial flies used in fly fishing.
9. v. Informal To give medical treatment to: "[He] does more than practice medicine. He doctors people. There's a difference” ( Charles Kuralt).
10. v. To repair, especially in a makeshift manner; rig.
11. v. To falsify or change in such a way as to make favorable to oneself: doctored the evidence.
12. v. To add ingredients so as to improve or conceal the taste, appearance, or quality of: doctor the soup with a dash of sherry. See Synonyms at adulterate.
13. v. To alter or modify for a specific end: doctored my standard speech for the small-town audience.
14. v. Baseball To deface or apply a substance to (the ball): was ejected because he doctored the ball with a piece of sandpaper.
15. v. Informal To practice medicine.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A teacher; an instructor; a learned man; one skilled in a learned profession.
2. n. In a university, one who has passed all the degrees of a faculty, and is thereby empowered to teach the subjects included in the faculty; a person who has received the highest degree in a faculty: as, a doctor in divinity. The degree is also regularly conferred by certain technical schools, as those of medicine, and, under certain conditions, by colleges. An honorary degree of doctor, as of divinity or laws, is often conferred by universities and colleges. The degree of doctor differs only in name from that of master. When there was but one degree in each faculty, the graduate was called a master in Paris, a doctor in Bologna. The faculty of the decretals being modeled after that of Bologna, those who took the highest degree in law were called doctors. This title was afterward extended to masters in theology, and finally to masters in medicine. The degrees of doctor conferred by universities, colleges, and professional schools include doctor of divinity (Latin divinitatis doctor, abbreviated D. D.; or sacræ theologiæ doctor, abbreviated S. T. D.; or doctortheologiæ, abbreviated D. T.); doctor of medicine, abbreviated D. M. (Latin medicinæ doctor, abbreviated M. D.); doctor of laws (Latin legum doctor, abbreviated LL.D.); doctor of civil law, abbreviated D. C. L. (Latin legis civilis doctor); doctor of both laws (civil and canon) (Latin juris utriusque doctor, abbreviated J. U. D.); doctor of philosophy, abbreviated D. P. (Latin philosophiæ doctor, abbreviated Ph. D.); doctor of science (Latin scientiæ doctor, abbreviated Sc. D.); doctor of music, abbreviated D. M. (Latin musicæ doctor, abbreviated Mus. D.)—the abbreviations of the Latin forms being more commonly used; doctor of dental surgery, abbreviated D. D. S.; doctor of veterinary surgery, abbreviated D. V. S.
3. n. Specifically A person duly licensed to practise medicine; a physician; one whose occupation is to cure diseases. [In the second and third senses much used as a title before the person's name (and then often abbreviated Dr.), or alone, as a customary term of address: as, Doctor Martin Luther; Doctor Johnson; Dr. Holmes; come in, doctor.]
4. n. A minor part of certain pieces of machinery employed in regulating the feed or in removing surplus material; specifically, the roller in a power printing-press which serves as a conductor of ink to the distributing rollers (see crab-roller, drop-roller): as, a color-doctor; a cleaning-doctor; a lint-doctor, etc.
5. n. An auxiliary steam-engine; a donkey-engine.
6. n. In wine-making: A liquor used to mix with inferior wine to make it more palatable, or to give it a resemblance to a better wine.
7. n. A liquor used to darken the color of wine, as boiled must mixed with pale sherry to produce brown sherry. See shcrry, mosto, and must.
8. n. A translation of a local name in North Africa of the bird Emberiza striolata. See the extract.
9. n. Same as doctor-fish.
10. n. plural False or doctored dice.
11. n. In some American universities, a degree superior to that of master of arts. Abbreviated Ph. D. See above, 2.
12. To treat, as a doctor or physician; treat medicinally; apply medicines for the cure of; administer medicine or medical treatment to: as, to doctor a disease; to doctor a patient.
13. To repair; mend; patch up.
14. To confer the degree of doctor upon.
15. To disguise by mixture or manipulation; especially, to alter for the purpose of deception; give a false appearance to; adulterate; cook up; tamper with: as, to doctor wine or an account.
16. To practise physic.
17. To receive medical treatment; take medicine: as, to doctor for ague.
18. n. In angling, a name applied to several artificial flies: as, the blue doctor, the silver doctor, etc.
19. n. A boiler feed-pump such as has been preferred on the western rivers of the United States. It is a vertical steam-pump, with a fly-wheel between the steam-cylinder and water-cylinder, and is said to be especially reliable. In case of need it can be operated by turning the fly-wheel by hand.
20. n. The cook of a merchant vessel; also, the cook of a lumber-camp.

Wiktionary

1. n. A person who has attained a doctorate, such as a Ph.D. or Th.D. or one of many other terminal degrees conferred by a college or university.
2. n. A physician; a member of the medical profession; one who is trained and licensed to heal the sick. The final examination and qualification may award a doctorate in which case the post-nominal letters are DO, DPM, MD, DMD, DDS, DPT, DC, in the US or MBBS in the UK.
3. n. A veterinarian; a member of the medical profession; one who is trained and licensed to heal the sick.
4. n. A nickname for a person who has special knowledge or talents to manipulate or arrange transactions.
5. v. transitive To act as a medical doctor to.
6. v. transitive To make (someone) into an (academic) doctor.
7. v. transitive To physically alter (medically or surgically) a living being in order to change growth or behavior.
8. v. transitive To genetically alter an extant species.
9. v. transitive To alter or make obscure, as with the intention to deceive, especially a document.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. obsolete A teacher; one skilled in a profession, or branch of knowledge; a learned man.
2. n. An academical title, originally meaning a man so well versed in his department as to be qualified to teach it. Hence: One who has taken the highest degree conferred by a university or college, or has received a diploma of the highest degree. Such diplomas may confer an honorary title only.
3. n. One duly licensed to practice medicine; a member of the medical profession; a physician.
4. n. Any mechanical contrivance intended to remedy a difficulty or serve some purpose in an exigency
5. n. (Zoöl.), Prov. Eng. The friar skate.
6. v. colloq. To treat as a physician does; to apply remedies to; to repair.
7. v. To confer a doctorate upon; to make a doctor.
8. v. Slang To tamper with and arrange for one's own purposes; to falsify; to adulterate
9. v. colloq. To practice physic.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. restore by replacing a part or putting together what is torn or broken
2. n. a licensed medical practitioner
3. n. a person who holds Ph.D. degree (or the equivalent) from an academic institution
4. n. (Roman Catholic Church) a title conferred on 33 saints who distinguished themselves through the orthodoxy of their theological teaching
5. n. children take the roles of physician or patient or nurse and pretend they are at the physician's office
6. v. give medical treatment to
7. v. alter and make impure, as with the intention to deceive