apothecary's Latin

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

apothecary's Latin (uncountable)

1. (idiomatic, obsolete) barbarous Latin; badly-spoken Latin.
   • 1842, Colburn's New Monthly Magazine and Humorist, page 333:

     As this bit of apothecary's Latin was quoted to the town-clerk at a corporation dinner, and was by him translated to the mayor to mean that the municipal body had not a leg to stand upon, it gave very serious offence indeed.

• law Latin, dog Latin, bog Latin

• pig Latin
• talk like an apothecary

• greengrocer's apostrophe

[Francis] Grose [et al.] (1811) “Apothecary's Latin”, in Lexicon Balatronicum. A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence. […], London: […] C. Chappell, […], →OCLC.