Officinal is a word applied in medicine to plants and herbs
that are used in medicinal preparations. For most of the 19th century,
it was the standard word used by the United States Pharmacopeia to refer
to the drugs, chemicals, and medicinal preparations that they
recognized, but by the 1870s it was replaced by official in this context. Despite this supersession, you still can find a healthy dose of officinal
in the pharmaceutical field, where it is used today as a word
describing preparations that are regularly kept in stock at pharmacies. Officinal was derived from the Medieval Latin noun officina, a word for the storeroom of a monastery in which provisions and medicines were kept. In Latin, officina means "workshop."
Examples of OFFICINAL
The plant turned out to have officinal properties and could be used to make an anti-itch ointment.
"Europe's mania for rhubarb in the second half of the eighteenth
century energized the drive to find the plant in its native habitat. Was
this plant … the very same one that for so long had provided the officinal root for European pharmacies?
— Clifford M. Foust, Rhubarb: The Wondrous Drug, 1992
Test Your Vocabulary
Fill in the blanks to complete an adjective that means "corrective": a _ _ n _ at _ _ y.
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Authors of comments and posts are solely responsible for their statements. Please email MiddletownInsider@gmail.com for questions or concerns. This blog, (and any site using the blogger platform), does not and cannot track the source of comments. While opinions and criticism are fine, they are subject to moderator discretion; slander and vile attacks of individuals will not to be tolerated. Middletown Insider retains the right to deny any post or comment without explanation.