Reference articles on history, science, culture and more
Encyclopedia

Officinalis

Term in biology

Officinalis, officinale, or occasionally officinarum is a Medieval Latin epithet denoting organisms, mainly plants, with uses in medicine, herbalism, manufacturing, and cookery. It commonly occurs as a specific epithet, the second term of a two-part botanical name. Officinalis is used to modify masculine and feminine nouns, while officinale is used for neuter nouns.

01Etymology

The word officinalis literally means 'of or belonging to an officīna', the storeroom of a monastery, where medicines and other necessaries were kept. Officīna was a contraction of opificīna, from opifex (gen. opificis) 'worker, maker, doer' (from opus 'work') + -fex, -ficis, 'one who does', from facere 'do, perform'. When Linnaeus invented the binomial system of nomenclature, he gave the specific name officinalis, in the 1735 (1st Edition) of his Systema Naturae, to plants (and sometimes animals or fungi) with an established medicinal, culinary, or other use.

02Species

Watch videos about OfficinalisExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article Officinalis, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.