Medical means to do with doctors and the treatment of illness. Medical care, medical records, medical student.
It covers the whole field: medical school, medical history, medical negligence. In British use a medical is also a noun — a physical examination, as required before a job or an insurance policy: have a medical, pass the medical. Note the distinction from medicinal, which describes something that heals: medicinal properties, medicinal purposes. Medical is about the profession and medicinal about the effect.
1adjectivemedicalTo do with doctors and the treatment of illness.
“She's studying at medical school to become a doctor.”
2nounphysicalA physical examination.
“All new pilots must pass a medical before they can fly.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
medical is a quality relating to medicine.
French médical comes from Latin medicus, a physician, from mederi, to heal. It replaced Old English laece, which survives in the leech that doctors once used.
French
médical
English, today
medical
Borrowed from French médical. Borrowed from French médical, from Medieval Latin medicālis, from Latin medicus. Replaced Old English lǣċe (“doctor (physician)”), which is cognate with Icelandic læknir (“doctor”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA