doctor /(?)/

doc·tor

doctor

n.
  1. A teacher; one skilled in a profession, or branch of knowledge; a learned man. [Obs.]
    One of the doctors of Italy, Nicholas Macciavel.
  2. An academical title, originally meaning a man so well versed in his department as to be qualified to teach it. Hence: One who has taken the highest degree conferred by a university or college, or has received a diploma of the highest degree; as, a doctor of divinity, of law, of medicine, of music, or of philosophy. Such diplomas may confer an honorary title only.
  3. One duly licensed to practice medicine; a member of the medical profession; a physician.
    By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death Will seize the doctor too.
  4. Any mechanical contrivance intended to remedy a difficulty or serve some purpose in an exigency; as, the doctor of a calico-printing machine, which is a knife to remove superfluous coloring matter; the doctor, or auxiliary engine, called also donkey engine.
  5. The friar skate. (Zool.) [Prov. Eng.]

Phrases & Compounds
Doctors' Commons
See under Commons.
Doctor's stuff
physic, medicine.
Doctor fish
any fish of the genus Acanthurus; the surgeon fish; -- so called from a sharp lancetlike spine on each side of the tail. Also called barber fish. See Surgeon fish.

Doctor

v. t.

imp. & p. p. Doctored; p. pr. & vb. n. Doctoring

  1. To treat as a physician does; to apply remedies to; to repair; as, to doctor a sick man or a broken cart. [Colloq.]
  2. To confer a doctorate upon; to make a doctor.
  3. To tamper with and arrange for one's own purposes; to falsify; to adulterate; as, to doctor election returns; to doctor whisky. [Slang]

Doctor

v. i.
  1. To practice physic. [Colloq.]