Pharmaceutical

How to spell pharmaceutical

14 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce pharmaceutical

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pharmaceutical mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to the production, preparation, or sale of medicinal drugs.
2. nounA medicinal drug or compound manufactured for medical use.

Pharmaceutical in a sentence

• adjective

  The pharmaceutical industry spends billions on developing new drugs.

• noun

  The pharmacy stores every pharmaceutical at a controlled temperature.

• adjective

  Strict pharmaceutical regulations govern how each medicine is tested.

• noun

  Counterfeit versions of this pharmaceutical can be dangerous to patients.

Where does pharmaceutical come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek pharmakon, a word that carried a striking double meaning of both 'remedy' and 'poison', reflecting the ancient understanding that any potent substance could heal or harm depending on the dose. From this came pharmakeutikos, relating to the preparing and dispensing of drugs, and pharmakeutes, a person who made up medicines. Latin adopted the form as pharmaceuticus, and English took it up in the early seventeenth century, settling on the adjective pharmaceutical for anything connected with the making and selling of medicinal drugs. The same Greek root survives in 'pharmacy' and 'pharmacist', which is a useful reminder that the tricky 'ph' opening and the buried 'ceu' both come straight from the Greek and Latin spelling, not from the way the word sounds.

How the word is built

• pharmac- (from Greek pharmakon: drug, medicine)
• -eut- (agent element)
• -ical (adjective suffix)