therapy

American  

[ther-uh-pee] / ˈθɛr ə pi /

noun

therapies plural

1. the treatment of disease or disorders, as by some remedial, rehabilitating, or curative process.

   speech therapy.

2. a curative power or quality.

3. psychotherapy.

4. any act, hobby, task, program, etc., that relieves tension.

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therapy British  

/ ˈθɛrəpɪ /

noun

1. 1. the treatment of physical, mental, or social disorders or disease

   2. ( in combination )

      physiotherapy

      electrotherapy

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therapy Cultural  

1. Treatment intended to cure or alleviate an illness or injury, whether physical or mental.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• self-therapy
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• therapies
  plural

Etymology

Origin of therapy

1840–50; < New Latin therapīa < Greek therapeía healing (akin to therápōn attendant)

Explanation

Therapy is the act of caring for someone, or the method of caring. If you have a rare disease, your doctor's therapy will hopefully cure you. Therapy comes from the Greek θεραπεία, for "healing." If someone tells you she's "in therapy," she's probably talking about a psychological kind of healing. But if she's getting physical therapy, then she's getting help with a bone or muscle problem. If someone suggests an experimental therapy, that's a mode of treatment that's new. Sometimes if something non-medical makes you feel better, we call it a kind of therapy. You might like chocolate therapy, for example.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

therapy therapies

The “no-contact” advice that floods social media and some therapy rooms treats complex human relationships as disposable commodities.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026

It is a relatively new therapy – not officially recognised by the NHS across the UK – which uses charged gas particles to help kill bacteria on the skin.

From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2026

Instead of waiting until the first treatment stops working, doctors could switch to a second therapy while the tumor is still responding.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 22, 2026

"He's ready to close this chapter and focus on his recovery and engage in therapy as he aspires to have a normal life."

From Barron's ● Jul. 22, 2026

I know that feeling—and I realize that I can save him years of future therapy by one simple action.

From "Dry" by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman

The agency’s staff twist reviews to kill therapies for late-stage melanoma and Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026

This week the agency is trying to sink promising new therapies for late-stage melanoma and Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026

In happier news, rising case counts have jump-started research into drugs that could treat people who do get sick, including antibody and antiviral therapies.

From Slate ● Jul. 24, 2026

About 15 years ago, the FDA briefly granted the peptide an orphan-drug designation, which provides incentives to a developer to work on therapies for diseases that affect fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 23, 2026

This means pharmaceutical companies, scientists, and universities control what research can be done on those genes, and how much resulting therapies and diagnostic tests will cost.

From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot

Related Words

• analysis
• cure
• healing
• medicine
• remedy