Definition of "receptary" in English

adjective

1. (obsolete) Generally or popularly admitted or received.

noun

1. (obsolete) That which is received.

2. (historical, pharmacy, pharmacology) A book of pharmacological recipes, incantations or charms.

   • 1898, Marcellin Berthelot, “Ancient and Mediæval Chemistry” in Men of Achievement: Inventors and Scientists, Library of Inspiration and Achievement, edited by Edward Everett Hale, New York: The University Society, 1902, p. 306, It is known that the recipes of therapeutics and materia medica have been preserved in a parallel way by practice, which has never ceased, in the Receptaries and other Latin treatises; these treatises, translated from the Greek during the period of the Roman Empire, and compiled in the first and second centuries, passed from hand to hand, and were copied frequently during the earlier portions of the Middle Ages.