physician

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A practitioner of physic, i.e. a specialist in internal medicine, especially as opposed to a surgeon; a practitioner who treats with medication rather than with surgery.

   His forefathers had been, as a rule, professional men—physicians and lawyers; his grandfather died under the walls of Chapultepec Castle while twisting a tourniquet for a cursing dragoon; an uncle remained indefinitely at Malvern Hill;[…].

2. 2
   noun

   A medical doctor trained in human medicine.

   The doctor had to go to London for a physician to take charge of his practice[…].

3. 3
   noun

   a licensed medical practitioner

Etymology

From Middle English fisicien, from Old French fisicïen (“physician”) (modern French physicien (“physicist”)), from fisique (“art of healing”), from Latin physica (“natural science”), from Ancient Greek φυσική ἐπιστήμη (phusikḗ epistḗmē, “knowledge of nature”), from φυσικός (phusikós, “pertaining to nature”). Displaced native Middle English læche, leche, archaic English leech (“physician”). Morphologically physic + -ian.