healthy

health +‎ -y

• IPA^(key): /ˈhɛl.θi/

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• Rhymes: -ɛlθi

healthy (comparative healthier, superlative healthiest)

1. Enjoying health and vigor of body, mind, or spirit: well.

   Antonym: unhealthy

   He was father to three healthy kids.

   • 1935, George Goodchild, chapter 5, in Death on the Centre Court:

     By one o'clock the place was choc-a-bloc. […] The restaurant was packed, and the promenade between the two main courts and the subsidiary courts was thronged with healthy-looking youngish people, drawn to the Mecca of tennis from all parts of the country.

2. Conducive to health.

   Synonym: healthful

   Antonym: unhealthy

   A healthy diet and exercise can help to maintain proper weight.

   • 2013 July 19, Ian Sample, “Irregular bedtimes may affect children's brains”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 34:

     Irregular bedtimes may disrupt healthy brain development in young children, according to a study of intelligence and sleeping habits.  ¶ Going to bed at a different time each night affected girls more than boys, but both fared worse on mental tasks than children who had a set bedtime, researchers found.

3. Evincing health.
4. (figuratively) Significant, hefty; beneficial.

   a healthy respect for authority

   Sam unwrapped the sandwich and took a healthy bite out of the middle.

When a clearer distinction is intended, healthy is used to describe the state of the object, and healthful describes its ability to impart health to the recipient. Vegetables in good condition are both healthy (i.e., not rotten or diseased) and healthful (i.e., they improve the eaters' health, compared to eating junk food). By contrast, a poisonous plant can be healthy, but it is not healthful to eat it.

• heal
• healing
• whole

• healthy in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• healthy in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.