flegi

Two verbs, one sickbed, and the difference is the whole page. Kuraci is what the doctor does: diagnose, prescribe, operate, treat the disease. Flegi is what the nurse does: wash, feed, turn, dress the wound, sit up at night, treat the person. A patient can be kuracata and flegata at the same time by two different people, and Esperanto will not let you use one word for both. English to nurse and to care for split the same way, but sloppily; Esperanto keeps the line sharp because the two roots came from different languages for different jobs.

The profession. Flegisto is a nurse - the -ist- suffix, a person who does this for a living - and flegistino a female nurse. Both are in constant use, and flegistino is the commoner of the two in older texts for the obvious historical reason. Flegado is nursing as an activity, flegejo a nursing home or care ward, flegebla treatable by nursing, and flegoto the patient in one's care. Compare kuracisto, the doctor, built on the other root with the same suffix - two professions, one suffix, and the roots do all the distinguishing.

Wider than illness. Flegi covers any patient tending: you flegi a garden, a friendship, a language, a tradition. Flegi la lingvon is to look after a language, which is a phrase Esperantists use about their own without irony. That reach is inherited - German pflegen does the same job - and it makes flegi warmer than zorgi, which can just mean to worry, and more hands-on than helpi, which is any kind of help at all.