The term "apothecary" derives from the Ancient Greek  (, "a repository, storehouse") via Latin  ("repository, storehouse, warehouse", cf.  and ), Medieval Latin  ("storekeeper"), and eventually Old French .
In some European and other languages, the term is current and used to designate a pharmacist/chemist, such as Dutch and German , Hungarian , Irish , Latvian  and Luxembourgish . Likewise, "pharmacy" translates as  in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish,  in Finnish,  in Bosnian,  in Hungarian,  in Latvian,  () in Serbian,  () in Russian, Bulgarian, Macedonian and Ukrainian,  in German and  in Polish. The word in Indonesian is , which was borrowed from the Dutch . In Yiddish the word is  .
Use of the term in the names of businesses varies with time and location.  It is generally an Americanism, though some areas of the United States use it to invoke an experience of nostalgic revival and it has been used for a wide variety of businesses; while in other areas such as California its use is restricted to licensed pharmacies.