therapeutic

UK/ˌθɛɹ.əˈpjuː.tɪk/US/ˌθɛɹ.əˈpju.tɪk/

adjectiveB2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #7,116 of 15,258leans written

Therapeutic means helping to cure or to relieve suffering. A therapeutic dose, therapeutic value, therapeutic gardening.

The loose sense is now the commoner, and calling anything therapeutic means it made somebody feel better rather than that it treated anything. In medicine the therapeutic window is the gap between a dose that works and one that harms.

Definitions of therapeutic

1adjectivetherapeuticHelping to cure or to relieve suffering.B2+
“The hot spring water is said to have therapeutic effects for people with joint pain.”

therapeutic is a quality.

Where it comes from

Greek therapeutikos comes from therapeuein, to attend to or heal.

Ancient Greek
θεραπευτικός — attentive, helpful, obliging, curative
New Latin
therapeuticus — curing, healing
Middle English
terapeucia
English, today
therapeutic

Built from

θεραπευτής · Ancient Greek — one who waits on another, an attendant
θεραπεύω · Ancient Greek — I wait on, attend, serve, cure

From Middle English terapeucia, from New Latin therapeuticus (“curing, healing”), from Ancient Greek θεραπευτικός (“attentive, helpful, obliging, curative”), from θεραπευτής (“one who waits on another, an attendant”), from θεραπεύω (“I wait on, attend, serve, cure”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

therapeutic in the wild

Medicines may be classified by mode of action, route of administration, biological system affected, or therapeutic effects.
Medication
TDM is recommended for use in the treatment of psychiatric disorders with lithium due to its narrow therapeutic range.
Therapeutic index
The regulation of therapeutic goods, defined as drugs and therapeutic devices, varies by jurisdiction.
Regulation of therapeutic goods
The primary purpose of therapeutic goods regulation is to protect public health and safety by ensuring that products within its scope meet standards of safety, quality, and efficacy.
Regulation of therapeutic goods
Other types of food used in a therapeutic setting, such as food for tube feeding, are more commonly described as medical food.
Therapeutic food

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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