Word.ws English Dictionary

phisick

phisick is the obsolete spelling of physic.

Meaning of physic

Noun

physic (countable and uncountable, plural physics)

  1. (archaic, countable) A medicine or drug, especially a cathartic or purgative.
    • Harke yee Lords, you ſee I haue giuen her Phiſicke, / And you muſt needs beſtovv her Funerall, […]c. 1588–1593 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The Most Lamentable Romaine Tragedie of Titus Andronicus: […] (First Quarto), London: […] Iohn Danter, and are to be sold by Edward White & Thomas...
  2. (archaic, uncountable) The art or profession of healing disease; medicine.
    • ...and thus draw out all the unwholesome Air and Stench, which does more harm than any Physick can repair.1743, Stephen Hales, A Description of Ventilators, page xiii
  3. (archaic, uncountable) Natural philosophy; physics.
    • When I left Mr. Bates, I went down to my Father; where, by the Aſſiſtance of him and my Uncle John, and ſome other Relations, I got forty Pounds, and a Promiſe of thirty Pounds a year to maintain me at Leyden: there I ſtudied Phyſick two years and ſeven months, knowing it would be uſeful in long...1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author Gives Some Account of Himself and Family, His First Inducements to Travel. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s...
  4. (obsolete) A physician.
    • Desire is death, which physic did except.1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 147”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC

See all 7 meanings of physic

Forms of phisick

pluralphisicks

Questions about phisick

What is phisick the obsolete spelling of?
Phisick is the obsolete spelling of physic.

Words near phisick in the dictionary

  1. phishes
  2. Phishhead
  3. Phishheads
  4. phishing
  5. phisically
  6. phisick
  7. phisicke
  8. phisickes
  9. phisicks
  10. phisnomies
  11. phisnomy

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: phisick (page history and authors); physic (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “phisick.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/phisick. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.