Physician

How to spell physician

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce physician

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does physician mean?

1. nounA person qualified to practise medicine, especially one specialising in diagnosis and non-surgical treatment.

Physician in a sentence

• The physician reviewed her test results before prescribing any medication.

• After the chest pains continued, he booked an urgent appointment with his physician.

Where does physician come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek physis, meaning 'nature' or 'the natural world', which gave rise to physike, the study of nature. Romans took this in as the Latin physica, 'natural science', and from it came medieval Latin terms for healing arts grounded in the study of the body. English borrowed the word through Old French fisicien or physicien in the 1200s, where it meant a practitioner of medicine, someone learned in the workings of the natural body. For centuries 'physic' itself meant medicine or a remedy, and a 'physician' was literally one skilled in physic. The same Greek physis root still sits inside 'physics' and 'physical', which is the clue to that easily forgotten 'ph' spelling and the unexpected 'y' where many writers want to put an 'i'.

How the word is built

• physic- (from Greek physis: nature, the natural world)
• -ian (noun suffix: one who practises)