pharmacology

Etymology

It is formed from English pharmaco- + -logy, modelled on New Latin pharmacologia,^[2][3][4][5] which is recorded in the title of W. Harris's “Pharmacologia anti-empirica” (1683).^[2][6] Barnhart and Dictionary.com take the English word as a borrowing of the New Latin one.^[6][7] Its parts are Ancient Greek φάρμακον (phármakon, “drug, poison; charm, spell”) and -λογία (-logía, “study”);^[6][8][9] Johnson derived it from φάρμακον and λέγω (légō, “to speak”).^[10] French pharmacologie is recorded later, from 1738.^[2] The Greek word is also the source of pharmacy.^[3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The branch of medicine that deals with drugs: 1698, in W. Salmon's Rebuke to Authors of State of Physick in London.^[2] Merriam-Webster dates the word 1704,^[4] and Barnhart and Etymonline 1721, in Bailey's dictionary.^[6][3]

Semantic evolution

In early use the word could also mean a treatise on pharmacy, a sense now obsolete.^[2][5] Johnson (1755) defined it as "the knowledge of drugs and medicines".^[10] Etymonline notes that the science includes pharmacy, the art of preparing drugs, as well as pharmacodynamics, the study of their action.^[3] From 1852 the word was also used of the properties of a particular drug or of the body's response to drugs, a sense the OED notes is apparently not found in French.^[2][4]

Timeline

• 1698 – the science of drugs; also a treatise on pharmacy.^[2] Barnhart and Etymonline date the word 1721.^[6][3]
• before 1728 – the noun pharmacologist.^[6]
• 1852 – the properties and effects of a drug, or the body's response to drugs.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The science of drugs, their properties, effects and uses, including toxicology and therapeutics.^[4][11][2]
2. The properties and reactions of a particular drug, or the response of the body to it.^[4][2]

Word family

• pharmacologic
• pharmacologically
• pharmacologist
• ethnopharmacology
• neuropharmacology
• psychopharmacology

Related words

• pharmacy
• pharmaceutical
• pharmacist
• -logy

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins