Dictionary

bedoctor en · VERB

Etymology

From be- (“on, at, upon”) + doctor.

Meanings

1. (transitive) To confer a doctoral degree upon.
   • [...] why bedoctor this charming French writer? 1887, The Academy and Literature:
   • Given the recent trend, the profession will soon bedoctor each year twice as many practitioners as the original total membership of the Association. 1967, Albert Somit, Joseph Tanenhaus, The development of American political science:
2. (transitive) To address as 'doctor'.
3. (transitive) To care for in the manner of a doctor.
   • I'm with yearn, (my) sweetheart's too; Both of us should have a doctor, Doctor to bedoctor us, To deliver us from yearning. 1967, Béla Bartók, Benjamin Suchoff, Rumanian Folk Music:
   • And half the neurotic, ever-bedoctored women owe their cowardly physical condition to the fact that when they were little children they were allowed to stay away from school, excused from common household duties because they had a headache or a cramp somewhere. 1906, The Independent:

Forms