officinal

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The Word of the Day for January 16 is:

officinal   \uh-FISS-uh-nul\   adjective
     : tending or used to cure disease or relieve pain : medicinal 

Example sentence:
     The officinal properties of the ginkgo tree, long accepted by traditional 
herbalists, have been the subject of modern scientific study.  

Did you know?
     "Officinal" is a word applied in medicine to plants and herbs that are 
used in medicinal preparations. In the 19th century, it was the standard word 
used by the United States Pharmacopeia to refer to the drugs, chemicals, and 
medicinal preparations that they recognized, but in 1893 it was replaced by 
"official" in this context. Despite this supersession, you still can find a 
healthy dose of "officinal" in the pharmaceutical field, where it is used today 
as a word describing preparations that are regularly kept in stock at 
pharmacies. "Officinal" was derived from the Medieval Latin noun "officina," a 
word for the storeroom of a monastery in which provisions and medicines were 
kept. In Latin, "officina" means "workshop," as in "laboratory."