What does "allopathy" mean?

A system of heroic medicine that treats symptoms with substances that produce the opposite effect.

What is a synonym for "allopathy"?

Common synonyms include: allopathic medicine, chiropractic, heteropathy, heteropathy.

Pronounced //əˈlɒp.ə.θi//.

//əˈlɒp.ə.θi// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A system of heroic medicine that treats symptoms with substances that produce the opposite effect. uncountable
2
the usual method of treating disease with remedies that produce effects differing from those produced by the disease itself wordnet
3
Conventional Western medicine; a method or treatment therein. countable

Borrowed from German Allopathie, allo- + -pathy, originally a pejorative term.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.