pharmacy
/ˈfɑːməsi
/noun (plural pharmacies)
1A shop or hospital dispensary where medicinal drugs are prepared or sold: the local pharmacy...
- Individual tablets are being sold in pharmacies without appropriate diagnosis or supervision.
- At the doses recommended on products available in pharmacies and health food shops, the ingredients appear to be safe.
- They can be bought over-the-counter at pharmacies and health food shops.
1.1 [mass noun] The science or practice of the preparation and dispensing of medicinal drugs: courses in pharmacy...
- As Langenheim demonstrates, the list of uses of resins in folk medicine and pharmacy alone is huge.
- Ever mindful of his training in pharmacy he did not fail to criticise what he saw as defects in The London Pharmacopoeia.
Origin
Late Middle English (denoting the administration of drugs): from Old French farmacie, via medieval Latin from Greek pharmakeia 'practice of the druggist', based on pharmakon 'drug'.
Pharmacy was originally the administration of drugs, and comes from Old French farmacie, via medieval Latin from Greek pharmakeia ‘practice of the druggist’, based on pharmakon ‘drug’. Pharmaceutical came into English in the mid 17th century. In modern times new developments have led to word coinages based on this word such as the 1990s pharming, punning on ‘farming’, for genetically engineered plants and animals raised to produce pharmaceuticals.