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therapy

noun

Simple meaning

Try remediation of a health problem following a diagnosis, usually synonymous with treatment.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

thehruhpee

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈθɛɹəpi

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. Attempted remediation of a health problem following a diagnosis, usually synonymous with treatment.

  2. Specifically, psychotherapy.

  3. Healing power or quality.

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: Attempted remediation of a health problem following a diagnosis, usually synonymous with treatment.

Used this way, therapy 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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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

family therapyradiation therapyphysical therapybehavior therapygroup therapygene therapycognitive therapymusic therapy

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • therapistnounPerson or profession

    A person skilled in a particular type of therapy.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • herbal therapynounCompound term

    The use of plants or plant extracts for medicinal purposes (especially plants that are not part of the normal diet).

  • highly active antiretroviral therapynounCompound term

    A combination of protease inhibitors taken with reverse transcriptase inhibitors.

  • hormone-replacement therapynounCompound term

    Hormones (estrogen and progestin) are given to postmenopausal women.

  • implosion therapynounCompound term

    A technique used in behavior therapy.

  • inflation therapynounCompound term

    Therapy in which water or oxygen or a drug is introduced into the respiratory tract with inhaled air.

  • infrared therapynounCompound term

    The use of infrared radiation (as by infrared lamps or heating pads or hot water bottles) to relieve pain and increase circulation to a particular area of the body.

Related words

Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.

  • therapeuticadjectiveRelated term

    Relating to or involved in therapy.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

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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.