Officinalis

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Officinalis, officinale, or occasionally officinarum is a Medieval Latin epithet denoting organisms—mainly plants—with uses in medicine, herbalism, manufacturing, 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 or fungi) with an established medicinal, culinary, or other use.^[3]

• Esculentus, a species name translating to 'edible'.
• Hortensis, a species name roughly translating to 'of the garden'.
• Oleraceus, an epithet denoting a species that has an extensive history of use as a vegetable and/or culinary plant.
• Sativum, Sativus, or Sativa, a species name translating to 'cultivated'.
• Tinctorius or Tinctoria, denotes a species that has a history of use for dyeing.