doctors

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of doctor.

   The hospital's doctors rotate through the emergency room each week.

   Several doctors signed an open letter about staffing shortages.

   Note

   A regular -s plural that carries every meaning of the noun at once: physicians, holders of a doctorate, veterinarians, and the fixers who arrange deals. In older writing it can mean learned teachers, a sense now obsolete. In dated use it also names mechanical contrivances rigged up to meet an emergency. The same spelling is the verb form meaning 'alters' or 'treats'. A word such as the or several before it marks the noun.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of doctor.

   The accountant doctors the figures whenever the quarterly loss looks too large.

   He doctors every report before it reaches the manager's desk.

   Note

   Its figurative use is the one to watch. A person doctors a document, the figures or a photograph, altering or obscuring it to deceive, and an object always follows. The same form serves the literal senses too: treating a patient, conferring a doctorate, or altering an organism's growth or a species' genes. Used without an object, as in she doctors in the next town, it sounds humorous.

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