Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A medicine or drug, especially a cathartic.
- n. Archaic The art or profession of medicine.
- v. To act on as a cathartic.
- v. To cure or heal.
- v. To treat with or as if with medicine.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Natural philosophy; physics. See physics.
- n. The science of medicine; the medical art or profession; the healing art; medicine.
- n. A medicine; a drug; a remedy for disease; also, drugs collectively.
- n. A medicine that purges; a cathartic; a purge.
- n. In dyeing, the nitromuriate of tin, or tin-spirits.
- n. Synonyms See surgery.
- To treat with physic or medicines; cure; heal; relieve.
- To use cathartics or purgatives upon; purge.
- To mix with some oxidizing body in order to eliminate phosphorus and sulphur, as in the manufacture of iron.
- Physical.
- Medicinal.
Wiktionary
- adj. Relating to or concerning existent materials; physical.
- n. countable A medicine or drug, especially a cathartic or purgative.
- n. uncountable The art or profession of healing disease; medicine.
- v. transitive To cure or heal; to treat or administer medicine, especially to purge.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The art of healing diseases; the science of medicine; the theory or practice of medicine.
- n. A specific internal application for the cure or relief of sickness; a remedy for disease; a medicine.
- n. Specifically, a medicine that purges; a cathartic.
- n. rare A physician.
- v. To treat with physic or medicine; to administer medicine to, esp. a cathartic; to operate on as a cathartic; to purge.
- v. To work on as a remedy; to heal; to cure.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a purging medicine; stimulates evacuation of the bowels
Etymologies
- Middle English phisik, from Old French fisique, medical science, natural science, from Latin, natural science, from Greek phusikē, feminine of phusikos, of nature, from phusis, nature; see bheuə- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Skill in physic is a useful accomplishment in a minister and may be improved to more extensive usefulness and greater esteem among”
Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume VI (Acts to Revelation)
“_Douwa min, ând Sultana Ingleeza_, ( "physic from the English Sultana",) is a sort of royal talisman which helps the medicine down as a bit of sugar taken with a child's draught.”
Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846
“It was not done by any might of their own, any skill they had in physic or surgery, nor any virtue in their word: the power they did it by was wholly derived from Christ.”
Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume VI (Acts to Revelation)
“A year’s additional training, carrying the bachelor’s degree, was offered to students who, having demonstrated a competent knowledge of Latin, mathematics, natural and experimental philosophy, and having served a sufficient apprenticeship to some reputable practitioner in physic, now completed a prescribed lecture curriculum, with attendance upon the practice of the Pennsylvania Hospital for one year.”
“Shortly I popped into the Chelsea Mansion -- once the temporary home of Courtney Love and a luxury rental at $20,000 a month -- to visit Roxanne Usleman Hulderman, their resident on-call physic to ask, "What awaits fashions future," figuring this was just as effective as watching Ben Bernanke rattle on CNN.”
“The jatropha, also called the physic nut, grows quickly and needs little water or nurturing, reaching maturity after two years, and yielding small black seeds that are covered in light, white husks and which can be picked by hand.”
“Persons who throughout the whole twelve months are worldly, think it necessary to be godly at a time of straits: all moral and religious matters they regard as physic, which is to be taken, with aversion, when they are unwell: in a clergyman, a moralist, they see nothing but a doctor, whom they cannot soon enough get rid of.”
“-- A tropical plant cultivated in many warm countries for the sake of its seeds, known as physic nuts.”
Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture
“I know not in what esteem physic, which is so highly useful to life, was held at Carthage; or jurisprudence, so necessary to society.”
“Jatropha Biodiesel is cultivated from jatropha curcas, also called physic nut.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘physic’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Old Pharmacy, etc.
This is not an Aubrey/Maturin list.
This is not an Aubrey/Maturin list.
This is not an Aubrey/Maturin list.
There. I think I've convinced myself.
(Of course...asafetida, Cinchona, Peruvian bark, Jesuit's bark, mithridate, aqua, bark, lard, electuary, gentian, diatessaron, myrrh and 110 more...
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Clarissa, Or, The History of a Young ...
These words are from Samuel Richardson's novel Clarissa, Or, The History of a Young Lady, 1747-48
adumbrate, virago, varlet, rencounter, akimbo, palliate, amanuensis, amok, equipage, cully, se'ennight, resentments and 560 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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This week's words
hand-handled, crouch, hootchy-kootchy, gloriole, glory hole, metempsychosis, doctrinaire, transmigration, celestial, treetop, luxuriant, physic and 102 more...
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billy shakespeare's guide to good living
hurlyburly, nave, direful, whence, sooth, dwindle, tempest-tost, withal, selfsame, wrack, unfix, recompense and 142 more...
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bintalshamsa's list
My Favorite Words
weltschmerz, perspicacity, idée fixe, invigilator, salubrious, tchotchke, ex nihilo, invidious, malapropism, naïve, sardonic, elide and 1402 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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mandarine's Words
antepenultimate, metonymy, synecdoche, pop, kern, inherit, clique, scrumptious, macerate, murmur, kerning, veranda and 1068 more...
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Doctor Faustus
Various words from the play by Christopher Marlowe.
Good Angel, Bad Angel, pride, covetousness, envy, wrath, gluttony, sloth, lechery, vintner, horse-courser, Helen of Troy and 148 more...
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chimp_conspiracy's peradventures
archaic words that have utility of form or beauty of function; in short, antique words that shouldn't be obsolescent.
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Words that I found in old books and ...
blundderbuss, eft, bradawl, scarlatina, sclerotium, ball turret, caddis fly, calomel, cock-and-bull story, codbank, fasces, fava and 13 more...
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Mom-Speak
Inspired by chained_bear's Dad-Speak list and comment at crudite.
peculiar, down below, strega, maleducato, scustumato, horses' ovaries, ti senti carciofo, hightail it home, physic, rambunctious, fussbudget, snazzy and 20 more...
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permacouture's Words
pony, hobbledehoy, mogwai, freezer, gitanes, shower, glasses, boludo, tequila, tucson, chilaquiles, raleigh and 85 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for physic.

sonofgroucho Lovely old word. Dec 14, 2007
reesetee My mom (a retired nurse) occasionally uses this noun to describe a particularly unpleasant person. ;-) Nov 2, 2007
sionnach Lear: Take physic, pomp; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel... Nov 2, 2007