pharmacist
Americannoun
-
pharmacists
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of pharmacist
First recorded in 1825–35; pharmac(y) + -ist
Explanation
When you're sick and need prescription medication, it's a pharmacist who prepares it for you, answers your questions about it, and sells it to you. You can also ask your pharmacist to recommend the best over-the-counter cough drops. If you decide to be a pharmacist, you'll need to study pharmacy, a field of science that's all about making and dispensing safe medicine that works the way it's supposed to. Pharmacists take a lot of chemistry classes to understand how drugs work, and they also study human anatomy and physiology to learn about the way people's bodies react to medicine. In some places, your pharmacist can also give you vaccinations.
Vocabulary lists containing pharmacist
Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Suffixes: -ist
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Pharmacy Words
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“The trend is always going to be up and to the right,” said Sara Brescia O’Rear, a former pharmacist who retired in her 40s thanks to her investing success.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2026
Shoukat, a pharmacist, told the trial he was paid around £1.5m in shares from the firm.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
The pharmacist asked customers to check back later, saying another shipment of 500 pairs was expected that evening.
From Barron's ● Aug. 11, 2026
Epstein, a pharmacist in Fort Washington, Pa., said she wasn’t looking for his approval.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026
The pharmacist turned from the powders he was measuring and held out both his hands.
From "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers
More directly involving pharmacists in prescribing decisions alongside physicians could help uncover medication patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 11, 2026
The USC union, United Faculty-UAW, represents roughly 2,700 non-tenure-track faculty across more than 20 schools and the USC libraries, including lecturers, researchers, clinicians, librarians and pharmacists.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2026
With a seeming majority of opticians and pharmacists out of stock, pastry chef Arno Dossogne, 37, struck gold at a small opticians' store that received a last-minute shipment Monday afternoon.
From Barron's ● Aug. 11, 2026
At the hearing, committee members—including pharmacists, doctors, clinic owners, academics and regulatory experts—evaluated each peptide.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
They were grouped by occupation and wore identifying clothing—doctors, nurses, farmers, pharmacists, housemakers, actresses, librarians, college students in academic gowns.
From "1919 The Year That Changed America" by Martin W. Sandler
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
