heal

v.

1. To make well or sound

   cure, remedy, restore, rehabilitate, renew, treat, attend, minister to, restore to health, renovate, fix, repair, mend, make whole, reconstruct, regenerate, bring around, relieve, alleviate, ease, meliorate, set, purify, rejuvenate, medicate, recall to life, reinvigorate, dress a wound, rebuild, revive, revitalize, revivify, purge, reanimate, work a cure, cause to heal up, resuscitate, salve, help to get well, make better, nurse, care for, take care of, physic, ameliorate, patch up, reconcile, conciliate, set right, snatch from the jaws of death*, doctor*, set up*, fix up*, put one on one's feet again*, breathe new life into*, give a new lease on life*; see also improve 1, nurse.

   Antonyms make ill, harm, sicken, infect.

2. To recover

   get well, knit, mend, recuperate, set, close up, scab over, cicatrize, improve, pull through; see also improve 2, recover 3.

heal and cure both imply a restoring to health or soundness, with heal usually applied to the making or becoming whole of a wound, sore, etc. or, figuratively, the mending of a breach, and cure specifically suggesting the elimination of disease, distress, evil, etc.; remedy stresses the use of medication or a specific corrective treatment in relieving disease, injury, distress, etc.