Officinal drugs, plants and herbs are those which are sold in a chemist or druggist shop. Officinal medical preparations of such drugs are made in accordance with the prescriptions authorized by a pharmacopoeia. Officinal is not to be mixed with the word official. The classical Latin officina meant a workshop, manufactory, laboratory, and in medieval Latin was applied to a general storeroom. It thus became applied to a shop where goods were sold rather than a place where things were made. Whereas official descends from officium, meaning office, as in duty or position. In botanical nomenclature, the specific epithet officinalis derives from a plant's historical use in pharmacology.
See also Herbalism Officinalis
References
Attribution This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Officinal". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 22.