different between healthful vs deserving

English

Alternative forms

• healthfull (archaic)

Etymology

From Middle English helthful, helþful, helþeful, equivalent to health +? -ful.

Adjective

healthful (comparative healthfuller or more healthful, superlative healthfullest or most healthful)

1. Beneficial to bodily health.
   • 1906, Princeton Alumni Weekly (volume 7, page 210)

     Hockey is an exciting and healthful form of exercise, well suited to college students […]

2. Conducive to moral or spiritual prosperity; salutary.
   • 1926, Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises, Folio Society 2008, p. 30:

     As he had been thinking for months about leaving his wife and had not done it because it would be too cruel to deprive her of himself, her departure was a very healthful shock.

Synonyms

• healthy
• salubrious
• salutary
• wholesome

Usage notes

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 of.

Derived terms

• healthfully
• healthfulness

Related terms

• heal
• health
• healthy

Translations

English

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /d??z?v??/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /d??z??v??/
• Rhymes: -??(?)v??
• Hyphenation: de?serv?ing

Adjective

deserving (comparative more deserving, superlative most deserving)

1. worthy of reward or praise; meritorious

   the deserving poor

2. meriting, worthy (reward, punishment etc.)

Antonyms

• undeserving

Derived terms

• undeserving

Translations

Noun

deserving (plural deservings)

1. desert, merit
   • 1711, Jonathan Swift, The Examiner, Number 30

     I ?here understand that value which every man puts upon his own deservings from the publick

Translations

Verb

deserving

1. present participle of deserve