physic

Everything in this family grows out of one Greek word: physis (φύσις), meaning 'nature' — not nature as in forests and rivers, but the inborn character of a thing, the way it grows and behaves on its own. Physis itself comes from the verb phyein, 'to grow, to bring forth.' So at the root, physic is about what springs up and unfolds by itself.

The Greeks formed the adjective physikos, 'belonging to nature,' and from it the noun for the study of nature. When Aristotle's treatises on the natural world were collected, they were called ta physika — 'the things about nature.' That word traveled through Latin physica into English as physics: literally 'the study of nature,' which over time narrowed to the science of matter, energy, and the laws they obey.

From 'belonging to nature' came physical. If something is physical, it belongs to the natural, material world — it has a body, it can be touched and measured. That same idea pointed in two directions at once: outward to the material world (physical laws, physical objects) and inward to the human body (physical strength, a physical examination). Both senses are alive today, which is why physical is one of the trickiest multi-sense words in the family.

The body sense produced the medical words. A physician was originally 'one skilled in physic' — and in older English, physic itself meant the art of healing or even a medicine. A physician studied the nature of the body and how to restore it, as opposed to a surgeon (from Greek kheirourgos, 'hand-worker'), who healed by cutting. That old division survives in modern English: a physician treats internally with medicine and diagnosis; a surgeon operates with the hands. Physique came later, borrowed from French, meaning the natural form of a person's body — their build.

Finally, the philosophical surprise: metaphysics. When ancient editors arranged Aristotle's works, they placed his book on first principles and being after his books on nature — ta meta ta physika, 'the things after the Physics.' The label was originally just shelf order, but readers reinterpreted meta as 'beyond,' so metaphysics came to mean the study of what lies beyond the physical: reality, existence, the fundamental nature of things. A filing accident became one of philosophy's great names.

The through-line for the whole family: start with physis = nature/the way things are, and you get the science of nature (physics), the material-and-body world (physical, physician, physique), and the study of what stands beyond nature (metaphysics).