Officinalis


Officinalis, or officinale, is a Medieval Latin epithet denoting organisms - mainly plants - with uses in medicine and herbalism. 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.

Etymology

The word officinalis literally means "of or belonging to an officina", the storeroom of a monastery, where medicines and other necessaries were kept. Officina was a contraction of opificina, from opifex "worker, maker, doer" + -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 of his Systema Naturae, to plants with an established medicinal, culinary, or other use.

Species