Doctor definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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Definitions (48)

American Heritage Dictionary (15)

noun A person, especially a physician, dentist, or veterinarian, trained in the healing arts and licensed to practice.
noun A person who has earned the highest academic degree awarded by a college or university in a specified discipline.
noun A person awarded an honorary degree by a college or university.

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Century Dictionary (23)

A teacher; an instructor; a learned man; one skilled in a learned profession. But freres hauen forʒetten this, … Wher [whether] Fraunceis or Domynik other Austen ordeynide Any of this dotardes doctur to worthe [become]. Piers Plowman's Crede (E. E. T. S.), l. 580. Then stood up one in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law. Acts v. 34. The best and ablest doctors of Christendom have been actually deceived in matters of great concernment. Jer. Taylor, Works (ed. 1835), II. 377. Who shall decide, when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me? Pope, Epistle to Lord Bathurst, I. 1.
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. With us ther was a Doctour of Phisik. In al this world ne was ther non him lik To speke of phisik and of surgerye. Chaucer, Gen. Prol. to C. T., l. 411. And the noumbre of doctoures of Cyuyle and physyk was grete excedyngly. Sir R. Guylforde, Pylgrymage, p. 6. The doctor of the civil law had to prove his knowledge of the Digest and the Institutes. Stubbs, Medieval and Modern Hist., p. 311.
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.] When ill, indeed, E'en dismissing the doctor don't always suceeed. Colman the Younger, Lodgings for Single Gentlemen.

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Examples (50)

Bell and the doctor were almost blinded and half-lame; the carpenter was obliged to walk upon crutches. — The English at the North Pole Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras
She had warned Walter that the doctor was his enemy--this, surely, was sufficient Try and discover, if you can, the reason of the doctor's power over my father, and why he is for ever directing his actions," urged the girl. — The Doctor of Pimlico Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime
After all, a doctor is a doctor Let us hope so. — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914
The Tarjum complained of an ailment from which he had suffered for some time, and the doctor was able to give him a suitable remedy, and all the other officers received small presents when they departed In the afternoon a messenger came from the Barca Tarjum. — In the Forbidden Land
For the doctor was a musical genius; and it had been his proud achievement to construct his own instrument, which friends vowed was as excellent as a Stradivarius. — Forty-one Thieves A Tale of California

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physician · officer · lawyer · father · gentleman · teacher · priest · nurse · master · fellow · writer · judge

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

Middle English, an expert, authority, from Old French docteur, from Latin doctor, teacher, from docēre, to teach; see dek- in Indo-European roots.

Century Dictionary (2)

Early modern English also doctour; from Middle English doctour, doctur, doctor, doktor, a doctor (of divinity, law, or medicine), from Old French doctour, doctur, French docteur = Provencal Spanish doctor = Portuguese doutor = Italian dottore = D. G. doctor = Danish Swedish doktor, from Latin doctor, a teacher, Middle Latin especially in the university sense, from docere, teach: see docile.
= Middle Latin doctorare, make or become a doctor, confer the degree of doctor on; from the noun. See doctor, n.

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