Definition of "officinal" [of•fic•i•nal]

• Readily available in pharmacies; not requiring special preparation. (adjective)
• Recognized by a pharmacopoeia: an officinal herb. (adjective)
• An officinal drug. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "An officinal tincture is made from the plants collected in the spring, when two years old; also, in some villages the infusion is employed as a homely remedy to cure a cold, the herb being known as "Throttle Wort;" but this is not a safe thing to do, for medical experience shows that the watery infusion of"
• "Now we have for commercial and officinal purposes two varieties of the cultivated plant, the black Mustard (_Sinapis nigra_), and the white Mustard (_Brassica_, or _Sinapis alba_)."
• "The dose of the authorised officinal juice is from one to two teaspoonfuls, and from five to twenty grains of the prepared extract."