healer

[ hee-ler ]

noun

1. a person or thing that heals wounds, cures illness, restores health, or otherwise makes well and whole.
2. faith healer.
3. (in a video game) a category of job classes in a role-playing game, tasked with restoring the health of other player characters in a party, but poorly equipped to either withstand damage from an enemy or deal damage to an enemy: DD ( def 2 ), tank ( def 4 ).

   Healers are essential to any raiding party, but Priest and even Shaman jobs are hard to solo in the early levels.

Word History and Origins

Origin of healer¹

First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English helere “Savior, medicine”; heal, -er ¹

Example Sentences

While psychiatric services are often hard to access — there are approximately 30 psychiatrists in a country of more than 50 million people, according to World Health Organization estimates — traditional healers are never far away.

From Ozy

A 2018 study in Kenya showed that trained healers and lay health workers could help reduce the treatment gap — the proportion of patients who remain untreated — to 32 percent from an average of 75 percent in low-income countries.

From Ozy

While healers often use remedies such as powdered roots, saffron-inked scriptures dissolved in water or incantations to treat mental health conditions, they are increasingly becoming the link to modern mental health services.

From Ozy

Zanzibar alone is home to an estimated 800 traditional healers, and across Africa, the number of healers is about 100 times that of conventional practitioners.

From Ozy

The 29-year-old traditional healer, or mganga in Kiswahili, is part of a new movement of healers who are collaborating with mainstream medical practitioners to reduce the mental health treatment gap in the semiautonomous archipelago.

From Ozy

Her grandfather had been a physician and healer who—according to family lore—married a descendant of the Osage or Pawnee tribes.

From The Daily Beast

The president seems increasingly uncomfortable with the role of healer-in-chief.

From The Daily Beast

Yamuna Zake, a long time healer and practitioner, tells me at her quiet West Village yoga studio.

From The Daily Beast

Elected in 2005, Morales was hailed as a people's hero and even as a healer.

From The Daily Beast

His father coined the word “poliatrist”, meaning a healer of the polis or city.

From The Daily Beast

But the defect which they bring to light will not be cured by closing our eyes to it and trusting to time, the sovereign healer.

From Project Gutenberg

A former clergyman of this parish appears to have been notable as a healer of bodies as well of souls.

From Project Gutenberg

We have already had a glimpse of the need there was, even in taking away human sickness, that the Healer Himself should suffer.

From Project Gutenberg

He made a speech in which he begged the sufferers to turn their eyes to the Great Healer, who alone could comfort.

From Project Gutenberg

The tone might almost have deceived Mahbub Ali, but it failed entirely with the healer of sick pearls.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• physician
• shaman
• therapist