Talk:apothecary

RFV 1

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apothecary

Rfv-sense: a drug-store or pharmacy. Never heard it. Ƿidsiþ 08:23, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

• That would be an apothecary's. SemperBlotto 08:26, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Note fr:apothecary shop which passed an RFD. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:58, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I've added three cites. The 1919 cite doesn't quite match our definition — it makes a point of distinguishing an apothecary from a drugstore — and the recent cites don't support our (obsolete) tag; but all three support a general sense (deprecated template usage) apothecary. —Ruakh_TALK 20:06, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I think apothecary is basically obsolete in the US, though of course intelligible to international sophisticates such as ourselves. DCDuring TALK 23:53, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

The person sense isn't obsolete, as I've heard it used in popular television shows. Friends (not too long ago, I guess) had an episode that featured an "apothecary table", which was mentioned over and over. I'd consider the person sense archaic, but not obsolete. However, as a "pharmacy/drugstore", I would agree that it's obsolete in the US. --EncycloPetey 02:06, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Checking COCA, it isn't exactly obsolete, but it only occurs once in the spoken material. It seems to be used a great deal attributively (80/159) usually in reference to antique items or non-US or historical situations. Much of the non-attributive use has the same historical and non-US pattern. Our register/usage tags don't quite capture it. DCDuring TALK 03:11, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd suggest calling it dated, rather than obsolete. I just finished a book circa 1950 that mentioned it. Don't we use obsolete for those words not used for over 100 years.--Dmol 07:32, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

No one has ever said the person sense is obsolete. We label it now historical, which seems perfectly fine to me. Well, I added the label, so I would think that. Ƿidsiþ 08:35, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I also think "now historical" is fine for the person sense. As for the place sense, as far as I can tell: (1) it's basically an error; (2) like the person sense, it's "historical" or "now historical"; (3) unlike the person sense, it's grown more common over time, because back when the person sense was more common, people actually knew the word's proper sense, so the error was less likely. (I note that "worked at an apothecary" gets several times as many Google-hits as "worked at a druggist" and "worked at a pharmacist" put together, even though "Worked as an apothecary" can't even begin to compare with "worked as a druggist" and "worked as a pharmacist".) —Ruakh_TALK 10:50, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

RFV passed, but tagged "nonstandard" and "now historical", per my last comment. —Ruakh_TALK 23:11, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

RFV 2

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RFV-sense "(Wicca) Supplies for spells, especially herbal ones or spells". The hits I see all seem to use the other senses. - -sche (discuss) 17:37, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

RFV-failed. - -sche (discuss) 07:02, 16 December 2012 (UTC)