pharmacopoeia

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin pharmacopoeia,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Ancient Greek φαρμακοποιία (pharmakopoiía, “preparation of drugs, the drug-maker's art”),^[7][2][5][8] which Merriam-Webster Unabridged calls Late Greek.^[2] The Greek noun is from φαρμακοποιός (pharmakopoiós, “preparing drugs”),^[7][2][5] from φάρμακον (phármakon, “drug”), the source of pharmacy,^[7][9] and ποιέω (poiéō, “to make”),^[7][10] the source of poet.^[9][2] The American Heritage Dictionary traces the verb to Proto-Indo-European *kʷei-.^[3] Wiktionary adds French pharmacopée as a second source,^[1] and Johnson cited the French word beside the Greek.^[10] Etymonline notes that the word was first used as a book title by Anutius Foesius of Basel (1528–1595).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

An authoritative book listing approved drugs with their preparations and standards: 1618 in the Historical Thesaurus and Merriam-Webster Unabridged,^[11][2] 1621 in Barnhart and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate.^[4][12] Etymonline dates it to the 1620s,^[9] Dictionary.com to 1615–25.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The Greek word named the art of preparing drugs; in New Latin and English it became the name of a book that lays down how drugs are to be prepared and used.^[7][5] Johnson (1755) defined it as a dispensatory, a book of rules for compounding medicines.^[10] The Shorter Oxford notes that early pharmacopoeias also told how to prepare and identify the drugs, and that the word now usually means an official book, published and revised from time to time.^[5] From 1721 the word also meant a collection or stock of drugs, and figuratively any such store.^[11][5][2]

Timeline

• 1618 – an authoritative book listing drugs and their preparation.^[11][2] Barnhart dates it to 1621.^[4]
• 1721 – a collection or stock of drugs.^[11][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A book, especially one issued by an official authority, listing the drugs and medicines approved for use, with their descriptions, tests of purity and strength, formulas and doses: The new edition of the national pharmacopoeia lists several more antibiotics.^[2][13][5]
2. A collection or stock of drugs: the village healer's pharmacopoeia of roots and herbs.^[2][5][11]

Word family

• pharmacopoeial
• pharmacopoeist

Related words

• pharmacy
• pharmacology
• pharmaceutical
• poet

Usage notes

The spelling pharmacopeia is a less common variant, used chiefly in the United States;^[2][13][5] Etymonline files the word under that spelling.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d e Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
12. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins