Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A male shaman or shamanistic healer, especially among Native American peoples.
- n. A hawker of brews and potions among the audience in a medicine show.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Among American Indians and other savage races, a man supposed to possess mysterious or supernatural powers: a name used in English to translate various native names. Among the Indians medicinemen are persons prepared for their office by a long and severe course of training, of a kind supposed to endow them with magical powers of cure and prophecy.
Wiktionary
- n. A Native American shamanistic healer.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. a person who professes to cure sickness, drive away evil spirits, and regulate the weather by the arts of magic; a shaman.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a Native American shaman
Etymologies
- Probably a calque of Ojibwe mashkikiiwinini ("doctor"), from mashkiki ("medicine") + inini ("man"). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“He rose and hurried from the room, and his men followed, leaving the gully dwarf king and his blubbering medicine man behind.”
“Willow bark had been a traditional headache remedy since the dawn of Krynn-but the medicine man had assumed, correctly, that Gell MarBoreth didn't know the first thing about herbalism.”
“Lily Rowan had once paid a Park Avenue medicine man fifty bucks to tell her that goat milk would be good for her nerves, and while she was giving it a whirl I had sampled it a few times, so the liquid Meta Vukcic had served me was no great shock.”
“Our medicine man cures the sick by the laying on of hands, and we have doctresses as well as doctors.”
“In New Caledonia the sterile woman buys from the medicine man some shapeless puppet, destined to share her couch and to exert its influence in favor of her pregnancy; in Brittany (Corré) a statue of Saint Quignole still exists, in front of which such women as are desirous of children are accustomed to strike their stomachs.”
“They tell me that, over the great salt water, in your white man's big camping-ground named London, in far-off England, the medicine man hangs before his tepee door a scarlet lamp, so that all who are sick may see it, even in the darkness.”
“The Oglala Sioux warrior and medicine man Black Elk1 had a life-changing ecstatic experience when he was nine years old and very sick.”
“The physician is mistrusted and is only consulted in the most desperate cases; the medicine man is aware that the forceps of his white brother are more efficacious than the rattling of the tum-tum, and, actuated by that same professional jealousy which is occasionally observed in more civilized communities, ho uses his influence to malign the stranger, and glorify himself.”
“That evening one of our doctors called for a council, and all the men gathered together in the council-tent to hear what their medicine man had to say, for we all believe our doctor is greater than any human being living.”
“Anthropologist Peter Freuchen lived among the Eskimos for years and observed the angakok or local medicine man go into trances.1 Freuchen watched Eskimo children who played games choking each other until they lost consciousness.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘medicine man’.
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Magic Users
Wonderworkers and spellcasters, names and types. Not including any of those -mancer words.
witch, wizard, kahuna, mirabilist, mentalist, magi, illusionist, medicine man, sorcerer, conjurer, diviner, mage and 26 more...
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Movies I've Seen
There's a jar I've been adding movie ticket stubs to since about age twelve. I am pleased to have a more accessible way of keeping track of the movies I've seen. Even if some are pretty embarrassin...
ghostbusters, amadeus, miller's crossing, no reservations, hoot, insomnia, master and commander, the matrix, o brother, where ..., night of the comet, the dark knight, tropic thunder and 489 more...
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Man
Everything that contains a man in it
taxman, salesman, common man, spaceman, neolithic man, straw man, seaman, fireman, spiderman, overman, old man, con man and 373 more...
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MEC4 Lesson 150
tear up, ordeal, creditor, compensation, make ends meet, petition, settlement, settle, border, headlong, terrifying, tactic and 20 more...
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Extrasensory Individuals
Those who connect with spirits, predict the future, and read our minds.
psychic, clairvoyant, esper, mystic, mentalist, spiritualist, spiritist, rappist, medium, channeler, agent, vessel and 57 more...
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