pill roller
- noun
- /pɪl ˈroʊlər/
:
farmacéutico
- The pill roller filled my prescription with a friendly smile.
Examples
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The pill roller prepared the medication carefully.
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Some old-timers still refer to the local pharmacist as a pill roller.
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Decades ago, a pill roller would hand-mix many medicines on the spot.
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Can you recommend a good pill roller?
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The pill roller provided me with the correct dosage for my medication.
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When I needed advice on my prescriptions, I turned to the pill roller at the pharmacy.
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The pill roller explained how to take the new medicine safely.
Synonyms
100
3.0
A person who makes and gives out medicines and tells people how to use them
17
2.8
A person who makes and sells medicines in a pharmacy
10
9.9
A person who prepares and sells medicines, especially in the past
5
4.4
A person who makes and sells medicines in a pharmacy
A person like a doctor or pharmacist who gives medicines to patients
How Trained
100
3.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The components 'pill' + 'roller' transparently suggest an agent or device that "rolls" pills, so a learner might infer someone who makes or shapes pills, but the specific occupational sense 'health professional / pharmacist' is not directly derivable and is ambiguous (could be a machine). The agentive '-er' gives partial clues but not the professional/qualified meaning, so the relation is only partially predictable for a B1 learner.
Etymology
Pill roller comes from the old way of making medicine by hand: workers would roll crushed medicine into small balls with their fingers or on a flat board. That's why pill roller, from pill and roller, became a name for someone who prepares and gives out medicines, or 'a health professional who prepares medicines'.