Pharmacology

How to spell pharmacology

12 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce pharmacology

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pharmacology mean?

1. nounThe branch of science concerned with the uses, effects, and actions of drugs on the body.

Pharmacology in a sentence

• She switched from chemistry to pharmacology in her second year of medical school.

• The new textbook covers clinical pharmacology and how each medicine is absorbed.

Where does pharmacology come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word is built from two Greek elements. The first is pharmakon, a remarkably slippery noun that could mean a healing drug, a poison, or a magic charm all at once, reflecting an ancient world where the same substance might cure or kill depending on the dose. The second part is logia, meaning 'the study of' or 'an account of', the same ending that gives English biology, geology, and dozens of other sciences. The two were joined in the modern scientific era, with the term appearing in English in the early 1700s as the formal study of drugs and their effects on the body. The pharm- spelling preserves the Greek ph for the f sound, which is exactly the trap for writers who hear an f and the same root surfaces openly in everyday words like pharmacy and pharmacist.

How the word is built

• pharmaco- (from Greek pharmakon: drug, remedy)
• -logy (from logia: study of)