healing

[hee-ling]

adjective

1. curing or curative; prescribed or helping to heal.

2. growing sound; getting well; mending.

noun

1. the act or process of regaining health.

   a new drug to accelerate healing.

Other Word Forms

• healingly adverb
• self-healing adjective
• unhealing adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of healing¹

First recorded before 1000; Middle English heelyng (adjective), helynge (noun); Old English hǣlinge (noun); equivalent to heal + -ing ² for the adjective, heal + -ing ¹ for the noun

Example Sentences

But healing can only begin when we stop treating each other as enemies and start seeing the human need beneath the anger — the need to belong, to feel safe.

Read more on Salon

It suggests the tour has been an act of healing, even if the band have been assigned separate dressing rooms for the first time in their career.

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Her friends urged her to reframe the tin’s meaning: Make it a tool of healing, instead of hurt, they suggested; strip it of its associations with betrayal and embrace it as a symbol of resilience.

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Writing this email and, hopefully, having your brother attend a therapy or mediation together is the first, giant leap of faith to healing your relationship.

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This device uses a specialized microneedle system that delivers a therapeutic molecule directly into damaged heart tissue, encouraging healing while limiting effects on the rest of the body.

Read more on Science Daily