Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The overall condition of an organism at a given time.
  • noun Soundness, especially of body or mind; freedom from disease or abnormality.
  • noun A condition of optimal well-being.
  • noun A wish for someone's good health, often expressed as a toast.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Soundness of body; that condition of a living organism and of its various parts and functions which conduces to efficient and prolonged life; a normal bodily condition.
  • noun In an extended use, the general condition of the body with reference to the degree of soundness and vigor, whether normal or impaired: as, good health; ill health; how is your health?
  • noun Natural vigor of the faculties; moral or intellectual soundness.
  • noun Power of healing, or giving health; capacity for restoring, strengthening, enlightening, purifying, etc.: chiefly in Scripture.
  • noun A salutation or a toast; an invocation of health and happiness for another: as, to drink a health to one.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The state of being hale, sound, or whole, in body, mind, or soul; especially, the state of being free from physical disease or pain.
  • noun A wish of health and happiness, as in pledging a person in a toast.
  • noun See under Bill.
  • noun a machine for exercise, so arranged that a person lifts an increasing weight, or moves a spring of increasing tension, in such a manner that most of the muscles of the body are brought into gradual action; -- also called lifting machine.
  • noun one charged with the enforcement of the sanitary laws of a port or other place.
  • noun See under Drink.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A state of well-being or balance, often physical but sometimes also mental and social; the overall level of function of an organism from the cellular (micro) level to the social (macro) level.
  • noun Physical condition.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a healthy state of wellbeing free from disease
  • noun the general condition of body and mind

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English helthe, from Old English hǣlth; see kailo- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English helthe, from Old English hǣlþ.

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Examples

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  • When I have thought of the welfare of the earth, the problems of its health and preservation, the care of its life, I have had this place before me ... Wendell Berry "A Native Hill"

    July 19, 2008

  • "Health is a most important subject. There is a Hindustani proverb: Health is a thousand gifts. The other interests of life should be sacrificed to health."

    - Samuel L. Lewis

    September 2, 2008