Also 6–8 alcool, alcho(h)ol, alcohole. [a. med.L. alcohol, ad. Arab. al-koḥ’l ‘collyrium,’ the fine powder used to stain the eyelids, f. kaḥala, Heb. kākhal to stain, paint: see Ezekiel xxiii. 40. It appeared in Eng., as in most of the mod. langs. in 16th c. Cf. Fr. alcohol, now alcool.]
† 1. orig. The fine metallic powder used in the East to stain the eyelids, etc.: powdered ore of antimony, stibnite, or antimony trisulphide (known to the Greeks in this use as πλατυόφθαλμον στίμμι); also, sometimes, powdered galena or lead ore. Obs.
[Minsheu, Sp. Dict. (1623), Alcohól: a drug called Antimonium; it is a kinde of white stone found in siluer mynes. Johnson, Lex. Chym. (1657), 12. Alcohol est antimonium sive stibium.]
1615. Sandys, Trav., 67. They put betweene the eye-lids and the eye a certaine black powder … made of a minerall brought from the kingdome of Fez, and called Alcohole.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 739. The Turkes have a Black Powder, made of a Mineral called Alcohole; which with a fine long Pencil they lay under their Eye-lids.
1650. Bulwer, Anthropomet., iv. 69. A Mineral called Alcohol, with which they colour the hair of their Eye-brows.
1813. Pantol., s.v., The ladies of Barbary tinge their hair, and the edges of their eyelids, with al-ka-hol, the powder of lead ore…. Ibid. (1819), That which is employed for ornament and is principally antimony, is called al cohol, or isphahany.
† 2. Hence, by extension (in early Chem.): Any fine impalpable powder produced by trituration, or especially by sublimation; as alcohol martis reduced iron, alcohol of sulphur flower of brimstone, etc. Obs.
1543. Traheron, trans. Vigo’s Chirurg. The barbarous auctours use alchohol, or (as I fynde it sometymes wryten) alcofoll, for moost fine poudre. [Alcofoll is Catalan.]
1605. Timme, Quersit., I. xvi. 83. If this glasse be made most thinne in alchool.
1657. Phys. Dict., Alcolismus, is an operation … which reduceth a matter into allcool, the finest pouder that is.
1661. Lovell, Hist. Anim. & Min., 3. The alcohol of an Asses spleen.
1751. Chambers, Cycl., Alcohol is sometimes also used for a very fine impalpable powder.
1812. Sir H. Davy, Chem. Philos., 310. I have already referred to the alcohol of sulphur.
† 3. By extension to fluids of the idea of sublimation: An essence, quintessence, or ‘spirit,’ obtained by distillation or ‘rectification’; as alcohol of wine, essence or spirit of wine. Obs.
[Libavius, Alchymia (1594) has vini alcohol vel vinum alcalisatum a mispr. or perhaps misconception for alcolizatum, see ALCOHOLIZATED; Johnson, Lex. Chym. (1657), 13, Alcohol vini, quando omnis superfluitas vini a vino separatur, ita ut accensum ardeat donec totum consumatur, nihilque fæcum aut phlegmatis in fundo remaneat.]
1672. Phil. Trans., VII. 5059. Assisted by the Alcool of Wine.
1706. Phillips, Alcahol or Alcool, the pure Substance of anything separated from the more Gross. It is more especially taken for a most subtil and highly refined Powder, and sometimes for a very pure Spirit: Thus the highest rectified Spirit of Wine is called Alcohol Vini.
1731. Arbuthnot, Aliments, 106 (J.). Sal volatile oleosum will coagulate the Serum on Account of the Alcahol or rectify’d Spirit it contains.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Alcohol is used by modern chemists for any fine highly rectified spirit. Ibid. Method of preparing Alcohol of Wine.
1794. Pearson, in Phil. Trans., LXXXIV. 395. Alcohol of gall nut (tincture of gall nut).
b. fig. Quintessence, condensed spirit.
1830. Coleridge, Lect. Shaks., II. 117. Intense selfishness, the alcohol of egotism.
4. (Short for alcohol of wine, this being the most familiar of ‘rectified spirits.’) The pure or rectified spirit of wine, the spirituous or intoxicating element in fermented liquors. Also, popularly, any liquor containing this spirit. Absolute or anhydrous alcohol: alcohol entirely free from water.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., s.v. Spirit, Water is a solvent to alcohol or spirit of wine.
1760. Phil. Trans., LI. 824. Alcohol, or spirit of wine, has been more generally used.
1806. Vince, Hydrost., ii. 25. Pure spirits, called alcohol.
1814. Sir H. Davy, Agric. Chem., 134. The intoxicating powers of fermented liquors depend on the alchohol that they contain.
1873. Cooke, Chem., 14. Alcohol has never been frozen.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, I. 43. The separation of absolute alcohol would appear to have been first effected about 1300 by Arnauld de Villeneuve. Ibid., 65. If wood-spirit be contained in alcohol, it may be detected … by the test of caustic potash.
1879. Ridge, Temper. Primer, 129. Life assurance offices have found that the average length of life of total abstainers is greater than that of drinkers of alcohol.
5. Organ. Chem. An extensive class of compounds, of the same type as spirit of wine, composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, some of which are liquid and others solid.
They may be regarded as water (HOH) with one of its hydrogen atoms replaced by a hydro-carbon radical as Methyl (CH3), Ethyl (C2H5), Propyl (C3H7), Butyl (C4H9), Amyl (C5H11) etc., according to the character of which, the alcohol is monocarbon or methyl, dicarbon or ethyl, tricarbon or propyl, etc.; or as paraffins (Methane CH4, Ethane C2H6, Propane C3H8, etc.) with one or more of their hydrogen atoms replaced by equivalent atoms of hydroxyl (HO), according to the number of which atoms replaced, the alcohol is monatomic, diatomic, triatomic, etc. Tricarbon alcohols are primary or secondary, tetracarbon and higher alcohols are primary, secondary, or tertiary, according as the carbon atom united to the hydroxyl atom is also directly in contact with one, two, three other carbon atoms of the molecule. Isomeric alcohols are such as have the same percentage composition but a different arrangement of atoms in the complex molecule, and are physically different substances. The number of possible alcohols is apparently unlimited. [This extension of the name to a genus was made by Dumas and Péligot in 1834–5, in pointing out the analogy between wood-spirit (Methyl alcohol) and spirit of wine; in 1836, they identified another member of the series in ethal (Cetyl alcohol); in 1844, Cahours found another (Amyl alcohol) in Fusel oil; after which the recognition of ‘alcohols’ went on rapidly.]
Common (vinous or vinic) Alcohol (see prec. sense) is a primary, monatomic, dicarbon or ethyl alcohol, C2H6O, and may be considered as water, in which one atom of hydrogen is replaced by an atom of ethyl, or C2H5; thus C2H5 . OH instead of H . OH.
1850. Daubeny, Atom. Theory, vii. (ed. 2), 222. The term … alcohol indicates a class, some members of which, far from being volatile, are not even liquid.
1863. Watts, Dict. Chem. (1872), I. 99. The first eight alcohols are liquid. Cetyl alcohol is a solid fat: cerylic and myricylic alcohols are waxy.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, I. 42. We speak of the various alcohols. Of these, common or vinous alcohol is the best known.
1879. G. Gladstone, in Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 106/1. Resistance to the action of Alcohols, Acids, and Alkalies.
