Meaning & use
cure
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Meanings
verbtransitive
To make a sick person well again, or to end an illness completely.
Grammar: Takes an object and often of for the illness: the drug cured him of the infection.
Patterns
- cure someone of something
- cure a disease
Antibiotics can cure this kind of infection within a week.
The doctor cured her of a long-lasting cough.
No medicine has yet cured the common cold.
verbtransitivefigurative
To solve a problem or get rid of something bad.
Grammar: Used figuratively with problems: nothing could cure his shyness.
Patterns
- cure something
- cure someone of something
A good night's sleep cured my bad mood.
The new law will not cure the housing crisis by itself.
He tried to cure himself of biting his nails.
verbtransitivetechnical
To preserve food such as meat, fish, or cheese by salting, smoking, or drying it.
Grammar: Often used in the passive: the ham was cured for months.
Patterns
- cure something with something
They cure the salmon with salt and sugar.
The butcher cured the bacon over oak smoke.
Hams are cured slowly to develop their flavor.
nouncountable
A medicine or treatment that ends a disease, or a solution to any problem.
Grammar: Usually followed by for: a cure for malaria.
Patterns
- a cure for something
- find a cure
Researchers are searching for a cure for the disease.
Honey and lemon are a traditional cure for a sore throat.
Higher fines are no cure for litter on the streets.
Word forms
| third person singular | cures |
|---|---|
| past tense and past participle | cured |
| present participle | curing |
| plural noun | cures |
Common combinations
- find a cure
- Scientists hope to find a cure within ten years.
- cure a disease
- No single drug can cure every disease.
- miracle cure
- There is no miracle cure for being tired.
- cured of
- He was cured of his fear of flying.
- cured meat
- Cured meat can last months without a refrigerator.
- cure for the common cold
- Nobody has found a cure for the common cold.
Synonyms and how they differ
- heal
- Heal is mainly for wounds and the body's natural recovery, while cure is for ending an illness, often by treatment.
- remedy
- Remedy is a gentler word for something that eases a problem and does not always end it.
- treat
- Treat means to give care, which may not succeed, whereas cure means the illness is actually gone.
- fix
- Fix is informal and works for machines or problems, while cure for problems sounds more serious.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: cure or cure vs. treat?
cure vs cure vs. treat
To treat an illness is to try to help; to cure it is to end it completely. Many conditions can be treated but not cured.
Practice
The new drug can ___ the infection completely within a few days.
Choose one answer.
Cure means to end an illness completely. Delay and hide do not remove the infection, and survive does not take an object like this.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “cure”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.