A pharmacopoeia, pharmacopeia, or pharmacopoea (or the typographically obsolete rendering, pharmacopœia), meaning "drug-making", in its modern technical sense, is a reference work containing directions for the identification of compound medicines. These are published or sanctioned by a government or a medical or pharmaceutical society, giving the work legal authority within a specified jurisdiction. In a broader sense it is a collection of pharmaceutical drug specifications. Descriptions of the individual preparations are called monographs.
There are national, supranational, and international pharmacopoeias.