Lechecraft

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The skill or practice of treating illness and injury, especially the traditional healing arts of earlier centuries
2. Medical knowledge and healing craft, particularly the remedies and treatments once practiced by folk healers
3. The old art of curing disease and wounds through herbs, salves and other traditional remedies

Etymology: Lechecraft is a compound of "leche" and "craft," and the two halves have travelled very different routes into English. "Craft" is an ancient Germanic word, from Old English "cræft," meaning skill or power, and it is the same word that gave us the sense of trade or handiwork. "Leche" is Middle English for a healer or physician, descended from Old English "læce," which meant a doctor, and it is related to the verb "leech" meaning to heal. The old word for a medical practitioner, in other words, outlived the professional sense it once carried: a leech was a doctor long before bloodsucking worms were named after them. Lechecraft therefore means the art or skill of healing, the practice of medicine in the broad sense. It is a plain compound rather than a coinage with a single inventor, and its use is recorded in Middle English, with the sense of medical practice being its primary meaning from the start. The word has been rare for centuries, surviving mainly in older writing and in discussions of early medicine.