SG Heritage Dictionary

Doctor [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1828

1. A teacher.

2. There stood up one in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law. Acts 5:34 .

3. One who has passed all the degrees of a faculty, and is empowered to practice and teach it, as a doctor in divinity, in physic, in law; or according to modern usage, ad person who has received the highest degree in a faculty. The degree of doctor is conferred by universities and colleges, as an honorary mark of literary distinction. It is also conferred on physicians, as a professional degree.

4. A learned man; a man skilled in a profession; a man of erudition.

5. A physician; one whose occupation is to cure diseases.

6. The title, doctor is given to certain fathers of the church whose opinions are received as authorities, and in the Greek church, it is given to a particular officer who interprets the scriptures.

7. DOCTOR s Commons, the college of civilians in London.

Doctor [Verb intransitive] Webster's Dictionary 1828

To practice physic. [Not elegant.]

Doctor [Verb transitive] Webster's Dictionary 1828

To apply medicines for the cure of diseases. [A popular use of this word, but not elegant.]

Doctor [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1913

1. A teacher; one skilled in a profession, or branch of knowledge learned man.

2. An academical title, originally meaning a men so well versed in his department as to be qualified to teach it. Hence: One who has taken the highest degree conferred by a university or college, or has received a diploma of the highest degree; as, a doctor of divinity, of law, of medicine, of music, or of philosophy. Such diplomas may confer an honorary title only.

3. One duly licensed to practice medicine; a member of the medical profession; a physician.

4. Any mechanical contrivance intended to remedy a difficulty or serve some purpose in an exigency; as, the doctor of a calico-printing machine, which is a knife to remove superfluous coloring matter; the doctor, or auxiliary engine, called also donkey engine.

5. The friar skate.

Doctor [Verb intransitive] Webster's Dictionary 1913

To practice physic.

Doctor [Verb transitive] Webster's Dictionary 1913

1. To treat as a physician does; to apply remedies to; to repair; as, to doctor a sick man or a broken cart.

2. To confer a doctorate upon; to make a doctor.

3. To tamper with and arrange for one's own purposes; to falsify; to adulterate; as, to doctor election returns; to doctor whisky.

Doctor Encyclopedia Britannica

DOCTOR, denoting etymologically a teacher, is the title conferred by the highest university degree. Originally there were only two steps in graduation, those of bachelor and master, and the title doctor was given to certain masters as an alternative or as a merely honorary appellation. It is in this sense that the word is to be understood in the phrase Doctor Angelicus applied to Aquinas, and in many other familiar instances of a similar kind. The process by which the doctorate became established as a third degree, distinct from and superior to that of master, cannot be very clearly traced. At Bologna it seems to have been conferred in the faculty of law as early as the 12th century, but there is no sufficient authority for the statement commonly made that the celebrated Irnerius drew up the formulary for the ceremonial, and that Bulgarus was the first who took the degree. Paris, the other great university of the Middle Ages, conferred the degree in the faculty of divinity, according to Antony Wood, some time after 1150, the earliest recipients being Peter Lombard and Gilbert de la Portree. In England the degree was introduced in the reign of John or of Henry III. Both in England and on the Continent it was confined for a considerable period to the faculties of law and divinity; it was not until the 14th century that it began to be conferred in medicine, and in England it is still unknown in the faculty of arts. In Germany, however, there is a degree of doctor of philosophy. The doctorate of music was first conferred at Oxford and Cambridge; its use in Germany is comparatively recent. See Universities.

9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 7, p. 319
[281 words — estimated reading time: 2 minutes]

Doctoral [Adjective] Webster's Dictionary 1828

Relating to the degree of a doctor.

Doctoral [Adjective] Webster's Dictionary 1913

Of or relating to a doctor, or to the degree of doctor.

Doctorally [Adverb] Webster's Dictionary 1828

In the manner of a doctor.

Doctorally [Adverb] Webster's Dictionary 1913

In the manner of a doctor.

Doctorate [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1828

The degree of a doctor.

Doctorate [Verb transitive] Webster's Dictionary 1828

To make a doctor by conferring a degree.

Doctorate [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1913

The degree, title, or rank, of a doctor.

Doctorate [Verb transitive] Webster's Dictionary 1913

To make (one) a doctor.

Doctored [Imperfect tense and past participle] Webster's Dictionary 1913

of Doctor

Doctoress [\N] Webster's Dictionary 1828

DOCTRESS, DOCTORESS noun A females physician.

Doctoress [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1913

A female doctor.

Doctoring [Present participle and verbal noun] Webster's Dictionary 1913

of Doctor

Doctorly [Adjective] Webster's Dictionary 1828

Like a learned man.

Doctorly [Adjective] Webster's Dictionary 1913

Like a doctor or learned man.

Doctors Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

or TEACHERS, of the law, a class of men in great repute among the Jews. They had studied the law of Moses in its various branches, and the numerous interpretations which had been grafted upon it in later times; and, on various occasions, they gave their opinion on cases referred to them for advice. Nicodemus, himself a doctor (διδάσκαλος, _teacher_) of the law, comes to consult Jesus, whom he compliments in the same terms as he was accustomed to receive from his scholars: “Rabbi, we know that thou art διδάσκαλος, a competent teacher from God.” Doctors of the law were chiefly of the sect of the Pharisees; but they are sometimes distinguished from that sect, Luke v, 17.

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary
[118 words — estimated reading time: 1 minute]

Doctorship [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1828

The degree or rank of a doctor. [Doctorate is now generally used.]

Doctorship [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1913

Doctorate.

Doctors’ commons Encyclopedia Britannica

DOCTORS’ COMMONS was a society of ecclesiastical lawyers in London, forming a distinct profession for the practice of the civil and canon laws. Some members of the profession purchased in 1567 a site near St Paul’s, on which at their own expense they erected houses for the residence of the judges and advocates, and proper buildings for holding the ecclesiastical and admiralty courts. “In the year 1768 a royal charter was obtained by virtue of which the then members of the society and their successors were incorporated under the name and title of ‘ The College of Doctors of Law exercent in the Ecclesiastical and Admiralty Courts.’ The college consists of a president (the dean of Arches for the time being) and of those doctors of law who, having regularly taken that degree in either of the universities of Oxford or Cambridge, and having been admitted advocates in pursuance of the rescript of the archbishop of Canterbury, shall have been elected fellows in the manner prescribed by the charter.” The judges of the archiépiscopal courts were always selected from this college. By 20 and 21 Vict. c. 77 (the Act to amend the law relating to Probate and Letters of Administration) § 116 and 117, the college is empowered to sell its real and personal estate and to surrender its charter to Her Majesty, and it is enacted that on such surrender the college shall be dissolved and the property thereof shall belong to the then existing members as tenants in common for their own use and benefit. In pursuance of this enactment the college has been dissolved and the ecclesiastical courts are now open to the whole bar.

9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 7, p. 319
[279 words — estimated reading time: 2 minutes]