| 释义 |
officinal, a. and n.|əˈfɪsɪnəl|
[ad. med.L. officīnāl-is, f. officīna: see prec.
Officīna, in ancient L. ‘a workshop, manufactory, or laboratory’, was applied in med.L. also to a store-room of a monastery in which provisions, medicines, or necessaries of any kind were kept for use; in later use it seems to have been extended, like ‘shop’, from a work-shop to a sale-shop. In monastic L. officīnālis domus, officīnāle, occurs also in the same sense as officīna. As used of herbs and drugs, it is not quite clear whether officīnālis meant ‘of the sort used in the pharmaceutical laboratory’, or ‘of the sort kept in the shops of herbalists and druggists’, the resultant sense, ‘used or recognized in pharmacy or medicine’, being the same in either case.]
A. adj.
1. Of a herb, plant, drug, etc.: Used in medicine or the arts. Of a medical preparation: Kept in readiness in apothecaries' shops; made according to the recipe prescribed in the pharmacopœia. Of a scientific name: Adopted by the pharmacopœia.
As applied to plants, it answers to the Linnæan specific name officīnālis, -āle, given to that species of a genus which has been used in medicine, and known ‘in the shops’ by the generic name; e.g. Anchusa, Borago, Pulmonaria officinalis, Lithospermum, Symphytum officinale, = Anchusa of the shops or herbalists, Common Alkanet, etc.
In the transferred sense, ‘recognized by the pharmacopœia’, officinal has been recently superseded by official (5 b).
c1720W. Gibson Farmer's Dispens. xv. (1734) 278 Those officinal Oils and Ointments that are most used in the Farriers practise. 1754Huxham in Phil. Trans. XLVIII. 844 This I have long ordered to be kept here as an officinal medicine. 1769Gentl. Mag. Dec. 607/1 Was presented to the Society of Arts, a large root of the true officinal rhubarb. 1785Martyn Rousseau's Bot. xii. (1794) 124 It [Veronica officinalis] has the trivial name of officinal, because an infusion of it is sometimes used medicinally. 1834W. Macgillivray Lives Zoologists 308 He gives the Swedish officinal name. 1853G. Johnston Nat. Hist. E. Bord. I. 128 The order is comparatively rich in officinal herbs. 1866Aitken Pract. Med. II. 66 It is not altogether immaterial which of the numerous officinal preparations of iron are to be prescribed. 1876Harley Mat. Med. (ed. 6) 67 Boracic acid is not officinal.
2. Of or pertaining to a shop; ‘shoppy’. rare.
1751Johnson Rambler No. 123 ⁋5, I had always in my officinal state been kept in awe by lace and embroidery. 1856Emerson Eng. Traits, Times Wks. (Bohn) II. 121 ‘The Times’..its tone is prone to be official, and even officinal.
B. n. An officinal drug or medicine.
1693Phil. Trans. XVII. 926 Since his time many Officinals have been fully illustrated in Print. 1790Blane ibid. LXXX. 292 The officinals which have kept their ground..under the names of Mithridate and Venice Treacle. |