Officinalis, or officinale, is a Medieval Latin epithet denoting organisms—mainly plants—with uses in medicine, herbalism 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.
The word officinalis literally means 'of or belonging to an officīna', the storeroom of a monastery, where medicines and other necessaries were kept.[1] 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'.[2] 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) with an established medicinal, culinary, or other use.[3]
