cure
(kyo͝or)n.1. a. A drug or course of medical treatment used to restore health: discovered a new cure for ulcers.
b. Restoration of health; recovery from disease: the likelihood of cure.
c. Something that corrects or relieves a harmful or disturbing situation: The cats proved to be a good cure for our mouse problem.
2. Ecclesiastical Spiritual charge or care, as of a priest for a congregation.
3. The office or duties of a curate.
4. The act or process of preserving a product.
v. cured, cur·ing, cures
v.tr.1. a. To cause to be free of a disease or unhealthy condition: medicine that cured the patient of gout.
b. To cause to be free of, to lose interest in, or to stop doing something: a remark that cured me of the illusion that I might be a good singer; a bad reaction that cured him of the desire to smoke cigars; a visit to the dentist that cured her of eating sweets.
2. To eliminate (a disease, for example) from the body by medical or other treatment; cause recovery from: new antibiotics to cure infections.
3. To remove or remedy (something harmful or disturbing): cure a social 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).
v.intr.1. To effect a cure or recovery: a drug that cures without side effects.
2. To be prepared, preserved, or finished by a chemical or physical process: hams curing in the smokehouse.
[Middle English, from Old French, medical treatment, from Latin cūra, from Archaic Latin coisa-.]
cure′less adj.
cur′er n.
cu·ré
(kyo͝o-rā′, kyo͝or′ā′)n. A parish priest, especially in a French-speaking community.
[French, from Old French, from Medieval Latin cūrātus; see curate1.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.