Forms: 4–5 argoyle, -oile, -oille, 6 -uyll, -ell, -oll, 6–7 -all, 7 -aile, 9 argal, 7– argol. [Origin unknown: found also as argoil in Anglo-French 1250–1300 in Liber Albus, I. 225, 231]. The tartar deposited from wines completely fermented, and adhering to the sides of the casks as a hard crust; crude bitartrate of potassium, which, when purified, becomes cream of tartar.
[c. 1260. Liber Albus, I. 231. Des avoirs qe veignent doutre meer: ciere, argoil, quivere, estein.]
c. 1386. Chaucer, Chan. Yeom. Prol. & T., 260. Of tartre, alym, glas, berm, wort, and argoyle [v.r. -oile, -oille].
1540. Raynald, Birth Man., IV. vi. (1634), 202. Wine lees dryed … which the Goldsmiths do call Arguyll.
1610. B. Jonson, Alch., I. iii. You have arsnike, Vitriol, saltartre, argaile.
1611. Cotgr., Tartre: Tartar or Argall, the lees or dregs that sticke to the sides of wine-vessells.
1714. Mandeville, Fab. Bees (1725), I. 412. Argol we might have from the Rhine.
1834. Penny Cycl., II. 309/2. Nearly 1000 tons of argol are annually imported into this kingdom. It comes to us from almost all wine-producing countries.
1863. Watts, Dict. Chem., I. 356. Argal or Argol.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, III. 970. There are two sorts of argol known in commerce, the white and the red; the former, which is of a pale pinkish colour, is the crust let fall by white wines; the latter is a dark red from red wines.
¶ Erroneously for ARCHIL, ORCHIL, q.v.
1758. Phil. Trans., L. 668. Another of the … useful plants of this division is the orchel, or argol, as it is commonly called.
1776. Withering, Bot. Arrangem. (1796), I. 372. One [lichen] brought from the Canary Islands, viz. the Orchel or Argol.
