health
Contents
EnglishEdit
Etymology 1Edit
From Middle English helthe, from Old English hǣlþ, ultimately from West Proto-Germanic *hailiþō, from Proto-Germanic *hailaz (“whole, hale”). Cognate with Old High German heilida. Analyzable as whole + -th.
Alternative formsEdit
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
health (usually uncountable, plural healths)
- The state of being free from physical or psychological disease, illness, or malfunction; wellness. [from 11th c.]
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I think she suffers from autism, ADHD or some other mental health problem.
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1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 4, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:
- Then he commenced to talk, really talk. and inside of two flaps of a herring's fin he had me mesmerized, like Eben Holt's boy at the town hall show. He talked about the ills of humanity, and the glories of health and Nature and service and land knows what all.
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- A state of well-being or balance, often physical but sometimes also mental and social; the overall level of function of an organism from the cellular (micro) level to the social (macro) level.
- The directors are concerned about the financial health of the project.
- Physical condition.
- (obsolete) Cure, remedy. [11th-16th c.]
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1485 July 31, Thomas Malory, “(please specify the chapter)”, in [Le Morte Darthur], (please specify the book number), [London]: Enprynted and fynysshed in thabbey Westmestre [by William Caxton], OCLC 71490786; republished as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, Le Morte Darthur by Syr Thomas Malory; the Original Edition of William Caxton Now Reprinted and Edited with an Introduction and Glossary by H. Oskar Sommer, Ph.D.; with an Essay on Malory’s Prose Style by Andrew Lang, London: Published by David Nutt, in the Strand, 1889, OCLC 890162034:, Bk.XVII, Ch.XI:
- And she myght have a dysshfulle of bloode of a maydyn and a clene virgyne in wylle and in worke, and a kynges doughter, that bloode sholde be her helth, for to anoynte her withall.
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- (countable) A toast to prosperity. [from 17th c.]
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2002, Joshua Scodel, Excess and the Mean in Early Modern English Literature, page 213:
- Strikingly, however, Waller does not deny but rather revels in the claim that healths lead to excessive drinking
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Derived termsEdit
Terms derived from health
Related termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
state of being free of physical or psychological disease, illness, or malfunction
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physical condition
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overall level of function of an organism
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Etymology 2Edit
From Middle English haleth (“man, hero, fighter”), Old English hæleþ (“man, hero, fighter”), from Proto-Germanic *haliþaz (“man, hero”). Cognate with West Frisian held (“hero”), Dutch held (“hero”), German Held (“hero”), Danish helt (“hero”), Swedish hjälte (“hero”), Norwegian hold (“hero”).
Alternative formsEdit
NounEdit
health (plural healths)
- (obsolete) A warrior; hero; man.
- Drayton (1612)
- They, under false pretence of amity and cheer, the British peers invite, the German healths to view.
- Drayton (1612)
ReferencesEdit
- health in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- health in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911