Health is the condition your body and mind are in. Good health, poor health, in the best of health, health and safety.
It is uncountable and takes no article: he is in good health, never in a good health. Two things extend it usefully. Health as an adjective attaches to a great many compounds — health service, health centre, health insurance, mental health — and in Britain the NHS makes health service a phrase everybody uses weekly. And the health of a thing means how well it is doing: the health of the economy, the health of the language, which is figurative and entirely standard.
1nounhealthThe condition of your body and mind.
“Her health has been better since she stopped working nights.”
2nounstateThe state of being well.
“He was in good health right up to the end.”
3nounfunctioningHow well something is functioning.
“The health of the economy depends on more than one figure.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
health is a state of the body.
Old English haelth comes from hal, whole — the same root as whole, heal, hale and holy. To be healthy is to be whole, and health, healing and wholeness are one idea that English later split into three words.
Middle English
helthe
English, today
health
From Middle English helthe. Cognate with Old High German heilida. Analyzable as whole, hale, or heal + th. More at heal. a doublet of wholth.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA