Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Apothecary
/əˈpɑːθəkɛri/noun
A person who prepared and sold medicines, the ancestor of the modern pharmacist.
The Greek roots
ἀπό
apó
away, aside
θήκη
thḗkē
case, store
Literally: “keeper of the storehouse”
The story of the word
ἀποθήκη is any storehouse, a barn as readily as a shop. Latin apotheca narrowed it to a place for wine and drugs, and the man who kept one became an apothecarius. The same word came out as German Apotheke, Spanish bodega and French boutique, which is why a chemist's shop and a fashion boutique are the same building underneath. English apothecaries won the right to prescribe in 1704 and turned into general practitioners.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
bodegaboutiquethesishypothesis
In a sentence
The apothecary's ledger lists opium, mercury and a great deal of rhubarb.