pharmaceutical
Americanadjective
noun
adjective
Other Word Forms
- nonpharmaceutic adjective
- nonpharmaceutical adjective
- nonpharmaceutically adverb
- pharmaceutically adverb
Etymology
Origin of pharmaceutical
First recorded in 1640–50; pharmaceutic(s) + -al 1
Explanation
A pharmaceutical is any kind of drug used for medicinal purposes, like cough syrup or sleeping pills. You may have heard of a pharmacy, which is a place where you can buy medicinal drugs, or a pharmacist, which is a person who prepares those drugs. In general, a pharmaceutical is anything related to pharmacies or pharmacists, though it especially refers to the kinds of medicines that they sell. Pharmaceuticals are often contrasted with what are called recreational drugs, which are the illegal kind that are generally used for entertainment purposes rather than to help heal the body.
Vocabulary lists containing pharmaceutical
This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for November 12–November 18, 2022
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This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for May 11–May 17, 2025
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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.
Sales in the pharmaceutical division rose 7% on a constant currency basis to 11.47 billion francs, while sales in its diagnostics division rose 3% to 3.25 billion francs.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 23, 2026
Food immunotherapy practitioners use ordinary foods such as nuts or milk in their programmes, rather than licensed pharmaceutical products.
From BBC • Apr. 23, 2026
Two that the secretary mentioned: negotiating most favored nation drug pricing with 16 large pharmaceutical companies and bringing health insurance CEOs “to the table to reform prior authorizations.”
From Barron's • Apr. 16, 2026
Still, sales of chemical products fell for the month to the lowest level since last July, in part with a pullback in pharmaceutical and medicine sales.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 15, 2026
Every evening I saw my father make a dutiful visit to her perpetual sickroom with its hot-water bottles and pharmaceutical supplies.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
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.
