Meaning & use
a drugstore
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Meanings
nouncountable
A store that sells medicines, and often also make-up, toiletries, snacks and small household items.
Grammar: Countable, so it needs a determiner: go to a drugstore, not go to drugstore.
Patterns
- go to a drugstore
- a drugstore on the corner
- at the drugstore
I stopped at a drugstore on my way home to buy cough syrup.
She works at a drugstore, so she gets a discount on shampoo and toothpaste.
There is a drugstore next to the bank where you can print photos.
nouncountableAmerican
A shop where a pharmacist prepares and sells prescribed medicine.
Grammar: Used in the same countable way; the focus here is on the pharmacist's service rather than the other goods.
Patterns
- take a prescription to a drugstore
- the drugstore fills prescriptions
- ask the drugstore for something
Take this prescription to a drugstore and they will make it up for you.
The drugstore called to say my medicine was ready to collect.
He asked a drugstore to recommend something for a sore throat.
Word forms
| plural | drugstores |
|---|
Common combinations
- go to a drugstore
- I need to go to a drugstore before it closes.
- a drugstore chain
- A large drugstore chain opened three new branches here.
- the drugstore aisle
- You will find bandages in the drugstore aisle near the back.
- a 24-hour drugstore
- Luckily there is a 24-hour drugstore downtown.
- stop by a drugstore
- Could you stop by a drugstore and pick up some aspirin?
- the local drugstore
- The local drugstore delivers medicine to older customers.
Synonyms and how they differ
- pharmacy
- More formal and focused on medicines; it fits better when you mean the place where prescriptions are prepared.
- chemist
- The usual British word for a shop that sells medicine and toiletries; it would sound wrong in an American sentence.
- convenience store
- Sells snacks and household goods but usually not medicines, so it does not fit when medicine is the point.
Word family
- drug noun
- A medicine or an illegal substance; the short word that drugstore is built from.
- druggist noun
- An old-fashioned American word for a pharmacist or the owner of a drugstore.
Commonly confused: a drugstore or pharmacy?
a drugstore vs pharmacy
Pharmacy means a place that mainly handles medicines, while a drugstore often sells many other things too. In the US the two words overlap a lot, but 'pharmacy' is the safer choice in formal writing.
Practice
Which sentence uses the word correctly?
Choose one answer.
'A drugstore' is a countable noun, so it needs a determiner such as 'a' or 'the'. Option 2 has no determiner, option 3 mixes two clauses, and option 4 wrongly puts 'a' before a plural.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “a drugstore”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.