The English term “pharmacy” traces its roots to the Ancient Greek φαρμακεία (pharmakeía), which encompasses the notion of preparing, compounding, and dispensing drugs, in Greek φάρμακον (phármakon). In Romance languages such as The Spanish “farmacia” and the French “pharmacie” derive from the Latin word “pharmacia,” which was inherited from the Greek term too.
In other languages, a different Greek root is used, which can be traced back to the Ancient Greek ἀποθήκη (apothḗkē) meaning a storehouse or repository. We can find it in most Germanic & Slavic languages: German “apotheke” or Russian “аптека” (apteka). However not all Slavic languages use it, some of them use a combination of the word “drug” with “shop or store”, for example, Czech “lékárna”. Just like in American English “drugstore”. It is also the case of Hungarian “gyógyszertár” and Icelandic.
A third important etymological root is the Persian “داروخانه” (dārūkhāneh), which has been the source for the term in several Turkic languages, as Turkish “eczane” and Kazakh “дәріхана” (därihana).
