complementary medicine
noun
Simple meaning
Any of several therapies that complement scientific medical practices with those of alternative medicine such as acupuncture or homeopathy.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kahmpluhmehntreemehduhsuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
kɑmpləˈmɛntɹiˈmɛdəsən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Any of several therapies that complement (augment) scientific medical practices with those of alternative medicine such as acupuncture or homeopathy.
The practice of medicine that combines traditional medicine with alternative medicine
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Any of several therapies that complement (augment) scientific medical practices with those of alternative medicine such as acupuncture or homeopathy.
Used this way, complementary medicine is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
- Science
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.