Curable means able to be healed or fixed completely. When doctors say a disease is curable, they mean they have ways to make the patient completely healthy again. Many infections are curable with antibiotics. Some types of cancer are curable if caught early enough. A broken bone is curable: the bone heals, and eventually you can use it normally again.

The opposite is incurable, which describes conditions that medicine cannot completely eliminate, though doctors can still help manage symptoms and improve quality of life.

When we say something is curable, we usually mean a medical condition that can be eliminated entirely. A curable illness can become a thing of the past with the right treatment, while an incurable one requires ongoing care.