Chemist

How to spell chemist

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce chemist

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does chemist mean?

1. nounA scientist who studies the composition, properties, and reactions of substances.
2. nounA person qualified to dispense medicines, or the shop where they are sold.

Chemist in a sentence

• The research chemist tested how the two compounds reacted under heat.

• She asked the chemist which cough syrup was safe to take with her tablets.

• As a forensic chemist, she analysed paint traces from the crime scene.

• He popped into the chemist on the high street to collect his prescription.

Where does chemist come from?

Language of origin: Arabic

Chemist is a shortened form of the older word 'alchemist', which reached English in the 1500s. Its core travelled through Latin and French from the Arabic 'al-kimiya', the name for the medieval art of transforming substances, where 'al' was simply the Arabic word for 'the'. The Arabic term itself probably drew on the Greek 'khemeia', meaning the pouring or mixing together of liquids, with some scholars linking it to an old name for Egypt, 'Khem', the supposed home of the dark art. As alchemy gradually became respectable experimental science in the 1600s, the leading syllable was dropped and 'chemist' came to mean a serious investigator of matter. The same root explains the modern British use of 'chemist' for a pharmacist, since these tradesmen once compounded medicines themselves, and it is why the spelling keeps the unexpected 'ch' that sounds like a plain 'k'.

How the word is built

• chem- (from alchemy, the study of substances)
• -ist (one who practises)