health
Pluralhealths (some meanings)
- 1The state of being well in body and mind, free from illness, injury, or other disorder.
Regular exercise plays a major role in maintaining good health.
Smoking damaged his health long before the doctors found the tumor.
UsageSay in good health, in poor health, good for your health (not
incorrect: a good health). - 2The provision of medical care and the protection of people's well-being, regarded as an occupation, a public service or a responsibility of government.
Spending on health now takes up nearly a fifth of the state budget.
Federal health officials issued new guidance on flu shots for older adults.
UsageOften before another noun: health care, health officials, health services.
Similarhealthcare
- 3The general physical condition of a person or animal, whether good or poor.
His health declined steadily in the months after the accident.
The vet checked the horse's health before clearing it to race.
Similarcondition
- 4The overall condition of something like an economy, a company or a relationship, judged by how strong, stable and successful it is.
Investors watch retail sales closely as a sign of the economy's health.
The bank's financial health improved once it sold off its worst loans.
UsageUsually the health of something, or financial health: the health of the economy, a company's financial health.
Similarstrength, soundness, stability
Note
A metaphor borrowed from bodily health, and the doctor's vocabulary comes with it: an economy is ailing, weak or recovering, a company is in good or poor health, and analysts read sales and debt the way a doctor reads vital signs.
- 5The amount of damage an in-game character or object can withstand before being defeated or destroyed.
The final boss has so much health that the fight takes ten minutes.
A green bar at the top of the screen shows each player's remaining health.
UsageTreated as an amount: lose health, get health back, a lot of health, full health.
Similarlife
Note
A gamer's word for a resource rather than a condition. Martin Robinson, writing about Bloodborne in Eurogamer in 2018, describes winning lost health back by pressing the attack. On screen it usually appears as a bar or a number, often called HP, short for hit points.
Less common meanings
- 6A toast in which people raise their glasses and drink to someone's prosperity.
At the end of the dinner, the best man asked the guests to stand and drink the health of the happy couple.
When the two old friends met again after twenty years, they filled their glasses and drank each other's health.
UsageUsually drink someone's health or drink to someone's health; also propose a health.
Similartoast
Note
Here the noun turns countable, and the grammar carries the sense: guests drink a health to someone, or drink healths to one another. Joshua Scodel's Excess and the Mean in Early Modern English Literature (2002) uses the plural this way, noting that Waller revels in the claim that healths lead to excessive drinking.
- 7A cure or remedy for a disease or affliction.
Note
An obsolete use in which the word named the thing that makes you whole, not the state of being whole. It sits close to heal, from the same root traced at the everyday wellness meaning. Modern English kept the state meaning and dropped this one. Read the word this way in older texts. In modern writing, say cure or remedy instead.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Health formerly meant a cure or remedy. en.wiktionary.org
- The cure/remedy sense shares its origin with the wellness sense and is related to heal. en.wiktionary.org
- The state meaning survives, but other meanings also survive, including a toast to prosperity. en.wiktionary.org
- 8A warrior, hero, or man.
They, under false pretence of amity and cheer, the British peers invite, the German healths to view.
1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-OlbionNote
A different word that happens to share the spelling. It comes from Old English hæleþ, "man, hero, fighter", and is cognate with Dutch and German Held. Michael Drayton still uses it in Poly-Olbion (1612), writing "the German healths to view". A modern reader could easily mistake that plural for the drinking toast. The word is long obsolete, so in that line read healths as warriors.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 6 facts
- Health meaning warrior has a separate etymology from health meaning wellness. en.wiktionary.org
- The word descends from Old English hæleþ, meaning man, hero or fighter. en.wiktionary.org
- The word is cognate with Dutch held and German Held. en.wiktionary.org
- Michael Drayton uses the quoted phrase in Poly-Olbion. en.wiktionary.org
- The first part of Poly-Olbion was first published in 1612. poly-olbion.exeter.ac.uk
- Healths in the quoted passage means warriors. en.wiktionary.org
Practice
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Origins
Inherited from Middle English helthe, from Old English hǣlþ, going back through Proto-West Germanic and Proto-Germanic to the root *hailaz ("whole, hale"). It can be understood as "whole" or "heal" plus the abstract noun suffix -th.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Health was inherited from Middle English helthe, from Old English hǣlþ. en.wiktionary.org
- The ancestry passes through Proto-West Germanic and Proto-Germanic to *hailaz, meaning whole or hale. en.wiktionary.org
- Health can be analyzed as whole or heal plus the abstract noun suffix -th. en.wiktionary.org
Proto-Germanic *haliþaz ("man, hero") gave Proto-West Germanic *haliþ, which became Old English hæleþ ("man, hero, fighter") and then Middle English heleð. Dutch held and German Held ("hero") are cognates.