cure. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

cure

PRONUNCIATION:	kyr
NOUN:	1. Restoration of health; recovery from disease. 2. A method or course of medical treatment used to restore health. 3. An agent, such as a drug, that restores health; a remedy. 4. Something that corrects or relieves a harmful or disturbing situation: The cats proved to be a good cure for our mouse problem. 5. Ecclesiastical Spiritual charge or care, as of a priest for a congregation. 6. The office or duties of a curate. 7. The act or process of preserving a product.
VERB:	Inflected forms: cured, cur·ing, cures
TRANSITIVE VERB:	1. To restore to health. 2. To effect a recovery from: cure a cold. 3. To remove or remedy (something harmful or disturbing): cure an evil. 4. To preserve (meat, for example), as by salting, smoking, or aging. 5. To prepare, preserve, or finish (a substance) by a chemical or physical process. 6. To vulcanize (rubber).
INTRANSITIVE VERB:	1. To effect a cure or recovery: a medicine that cures. 2. To be prepared, preserved, or finished by a chemical or physical process: hams curing in the smokehouse.
ETYMOLOGY:	Middle English, from Old French, medical treatment, from Latin cra, from Archaic Latin coisa-.
OTHER FORMS:	curer —NOUN cureless —ADJECTIVE
SYNONYMS:	cure, heal, remedy These verbs mean to set right an undesirable or unhealthy condition: cure an ailing economy; heal a wounded spirit; remedy a structural defect.


The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.