Physical

How to spell physical

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce physical

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does physical mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to the body, or to material things that can be touched or measured.

Physical in a sentence

• The job demands a high level of physical fitness.

• The museum keeps a physical copy of every digital record.

Where does physical come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek phusis, meaning 'nature' or 'the natural world', which gave rise to phusikos, an adjective for things 'relating to nature'. Latin took this up as physicalis, and medieval scholars used the related noun physica for the study of nature, the ancestor of the modern science 'physics'. English adopted 'physical' in the late 1300s, at first to mean 'relating to the body' or 'medicinal', since healing the body was seen as a natural art; the same root explains the old word 'physic' for medicine. Over time the word broadened to cover anything material or bodily as opposed to mental or spiritual. The tricky 'ph' spelling for an 'f' sound is the fingerprint of its Greek origin, and the unstressed second syllable hides a soft 'i' that many writers second-guess.

How the word is built

• phys- (from Greek phusis: nature)
• -ical (adjective suffix)