Physical

The story of the word

φύσις is nature in the sense of growth, from φύειν, to bring forth, so a physicist began as a student of things that grow and change. In Middle English physical meant medical, which is why a doctor is a physician and why physic was a purgative; the bodily sense only took over in the 18th century. Aristotle's Metaphysics owes its name to an editor who shelved it after the Physics, not to any claim about rising above nature.

How it travelled

Ancient Greek → Latin → English

First recorded

15th century