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REFERENCE

apothecary's Latin

idiom
Meaning

barbarous Latin; badly-spoken Latin.


Examples
SIMPLE

The old doctor wrote his notes in apothecary's Latin.

CONTEXTUAL

The student struggled to read the ancient medical text because it was written in poor apothecary's Latin.

COMPLEX

Scholars often dismiss the messy, ungrammatical scribbles found in medieval medical journals as nothing more than apothecary's Latin.

Anchors to

Last updated July 12, 2026