Other forms: physicians
A physician is a doctor who treats illness without surgery. A consultant physician, see a physician, physician and surgeon.
The old division survives in Britain in an odd way, since a surgeon drops the title doctor and is called mister once qualified, while a physician keeps it. The word is far commoner in America as the ordinary term for a doctor.
1nounphysicianA doctor who treats illness without surgery.
“Her family physician sent her to a heart specialist.”
physician is a doctor.
Old French fisicien comes from fisique, the art of healing, from Greek physis, nature.
Ancient Greek
φυσική ἐπιστήμη — knowledge of nature
Latin
physica — natural science
Old French
fisicïen — physician
Middle English
fisicien
English, today
physician
Built from
From Middle English fisicien, from Old French fisicïen (“physician”) (modern French physicien (“physicist”)), from fisique (“art of healing”), from Latin physica (“natural science”), from Ancient Greek φυσική ἐπιστήμη (“knowledge of nature”), from φυσικός (“pertaining to nature”). Displaced native leche, archaic leech (“physician”). Morphologically physic + -ian.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA