Pa·tient, n.
 1. One who, or that which, is passively affected; a passive recipient.
    Malice is a passion so impetuous and precipitate that it often involves the agent and the patient.   --Gov. of Tongue.
 2. A person under medical or surgical treatment; -- correlative to physician or nurse.
    Like a physician, . . . seeing his patient in a pestilent fever.   --Sir P. Sidney.
 In patient, a patient who receives lodging and food, as treatment, in a hospital or an infirmary.
 Out patient, one who receives advice and medicine, or treatment, from an infirmary.