Pharmacy
nounA shop or part of a shop where medicines are prepared and sold.
How to spell pharmacy
8 letters · 3 syllables
How to pronounce pharmacy
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does pharmacy mean?
- nounA shop or part of a shop where medicines are prepared and sold.
- nounThe science and practice of preparing and dispensing medicinal drugs.
Pharmacy in a sentence
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She collected her prescription from the pharmacy on the corner.
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She studied pharmacy for four years before qualifying.
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The pharmacy stays open until midnight for emergencies.
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Advances in pharmacy have improved how drugs are formulated.
Where does pharmacy come from?
Language of origin: Greek
The word traces back to the ancient Greek pharmakon, a strikingly two-sided word that could mean a healing remedy or a deadly poison, depending on the dose. From it the Greeks built pharmakeia, the use or administering of drugs, which passed into Latin as pharmacia. English received the word through Old French farmacie in the late 1300s, when it still carried the broad sense of giving medicine or a purgative. Over the centuries the meaning narrowed to the art of preparing drugs and then to the shop where they are dispensed. The classical 'ph' spelling for the 'f' sound, kept here rather than simplified, is the lasting fingerprint of that Greek origin and is the very thing that trips up writers.
How the word is built
- pharmac- (from Greek pharmakon: drug, remedy)
- -y (noun-forming suffix)
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