doctor
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A veterinarian; a medical practitioner who treats non-human animals.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dahkterSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdɑktɚ
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
A veterinarian; a medical practitioner who treats non-human animals.
A physician; a member of the medical profession; one who is trained and licensed to heal the sick or injured. The final examination and qualification may award a doctor degree in which case the post-nominal letters are DO, DPM, MD, DMD, or DDS in the US, or MBBS or BDS in the UK.
Children take the roles of physician or patient or nurse and pretend they are at the physician's office
“The children explored each other's bodies by playing the game of doctor.”
A person who holds Ph.D. degree (or the equivalent) from an academic institution
“She is a doctor of philosophy in physics.”
A person who has attained a doctorate, such as a Ph.D. or Th.D. or one of many other terminal degrees conferred by a college or university.
A nickname for a person who has special knowledge or talents to manipulate or arrange transactions.
verb
transitive
To make (someone) into an (academic) doctor; to confer a doctorate upon.
Alter and make impure, as with the intention to deceive
transitive
To genetically alter an extant species.
transitive
To physically alter (medically or surgically) a living being in order to change growth or behavior.
transitive
To adulterate, drug, or poison (drink).
transitive
To act as a medical doctor to.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A physician; a member of the medical profession; one who is trained and licensed to heal the sick or injured. The final examination and qualification may award a doctor degree in which case the post-nominal letters are DO, DPM, MD, DMD, or DDS in the US, or MBBS or BDS in the UK.
Used this way, doctor is a specialist word with a faintly unfavourable edge. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
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.
Nearby words
- md , a specialist term, precise but narrower
- medico , more casual, better suited to speech than writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
How It’s Used
The word’s distinct uses, one example each.
Childrennoun
“The children explored each other's bodies by playing the game of doctor.”
Holdsnoun
“She is a doctor of philosophy in physics.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
An honorary degree in letters.
An honorary degree in the humanities.
An honorary law degree.
A doctor's degree in medicine.
A doctor's degree in music.
A doctor's degree in musical arts.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Of or relating to a doctor or doctorate.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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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.