Medicine-man definition

A male shaman or shamanistic healer, especially among Native American peoples.
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A hawker of nostrums among the audience in a medicine show.
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Among North American Indians, etc., a man believed to have supernatural powers of curing disease and controlling spirits; shaman.
noun
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A male shaman or shamanistic healer, especially among Native American peoples.
noun
0
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A hawker of nostrums among the audience in a medicine show.
noun
0
0
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A Native American shamanistic healer.
noun
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Other Word Forms

Noun

Singular:
medicine-man
Plural:
medicine-men

Origin of medicine-man

  • Probably a calque of Ojibwe mashkikiiwinini (“doctor"), from mashkiki (“medicine") + inini (“man").

    From Wiktionary

Medicine-man Sentence Examples

  • It used to be that the medicine man was the most respected individual in the village.

  • A young Piute Indian medicine-man, known as Wovoka, and called Jack Wilson by the whites, proclaimed that he had had a revelation, and that, if this ghost dance and other ceremonies were duly performed, the Indians would be rid of the white men and restored to power.

  • Although it is usually present, faith in the medicine man is not essential for the efficacy of the method.

  • Sometimes the supposed magician or medicine man himself did the scrying; occasionally he enabled his client to see for himself; often a child was selected as the scryer.

  • Let the medicine man or magician pray that the fever may pass into the frog, and the frog be forthwith released, and the cure will be effected.

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