Meaning & use
pharmacopeia
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Meanings
nouncountablemedical
An official book listing medicines, with their ingredients, strengths and quality standards, used by pharmacists and drug makers.
Grammar: Countable: the United States Pharmacopeia is one famous example.
Patterns
- listed in the pharmacopeia
- the pharmacopeia of a country
The new drug was added to the national pharmacopeia last year.
Pharmacists check the pharmacopeia for official standards on purity.
Each country publishes its own pharmacopeia, though many standards overlap.
nouncountable or uncountablefigurative
The whole collection of medicines or remedies available to a doctor, a culture or a tradition.
Grammar: Often used with a possessive: the doctor's pharmacopeia.
Patterns
- the pharmacopeia of something
Herbal teas were part of the village healer's pharmacopeia.
Antibiotics expanded the doctor's pharmacopeia greatly.
The hospital's pharmacopeia includes several newer treatments.
Word forms
| plural | pharmacopeias |
|---|
Common combinations
- national pharmacopeia
- Each national pharmacopeia sets legal quality standards.
- traditional pharmacopeia
- The traditional pharmacopeia of the region relies on local plants.
- added to the pharmacopeia
- The drug was added to the pharmacopeia after trials.
- herbal pharmacopeia
- She studied the herbal pharmacopeia of medieval Europe.
Synonyms and how they differ
- formulary
- It is a list of drugs approved for use in a hospital or health plan, so it is narrower than a pharmacopeia.
- materia medica
- It is a Latin term for the study and listing of remedies, and it sounds older and more scholarly.
- drug compendium
- It describes any collected reference on drugs without the official status of a pharmacopeia.
Word family
- pharmacy noun
- a place where medicines are prepared and sold
- pharmacist noun
- a person trained to prepare and sell medicines
- pharmacology noun
- the science of how drugs work
- pharmaceutical adjective
- relating to medicines
Commonly confused: pharmacopeia or pharmacology?
pharmacopeia vs pharmacology
Pharmacology is the science of drug effects, whereas a pharmacopeia is a reference book or collection of medicines.
Practice
The pharmacist looked in the ____ to check the official purity standard for the new tablet.
Choose one answer.
A pharmacopeia is the official reference book of drug standards. Pharmacology is a science, a pharmacist is a person and a pharmacy is a shop.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “pharmacopeia”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.