alcoholism

Etymology

It is formed from English alcohol + -ism,^[2][3][4] perhaps partly after New Latin alcoholismus,^[3][5] the name the Swedish physician Magnus Huss gave to the disease caused by drinking alcohol, in his “Alcoholismus chronicus”.^[2][3] The OED dates Huss's work to 1849 and finds his Swedish alkoholism in the same year, Alkoholismus from 1850 and alcoolisme from 1851;^[2] Etymonline dates his coinage to 1852, the year of a German translation in which Huss wrote that he had given the disease this new name.^[3][2] Scientific Latin had used alcoholismus earlier, from 1652, for pulverization.^[2] Merriam-Webster derives the English word from the New Latin one.^[5][6] alcohol itself is from Medieval Latin alcohol (“powdered ore of antimony”), from Arabic اَلْكُحْل (al-kuḥl, “kohl”), the fine powder used to darken the eyelids.^[3][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Consumption of alcohol, especially to excess, and the drunkenness or illness it causes: 1848, in J. Cowen's First and Last Days of Alcohol the Great.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

At first the word named the effects of alcohol on the body, what Etymonline calls "alcohol poisoning", acute or chronic.^[2][3] In later use it came to mean the disease of addiction to alcohol, a chronic condition harming health and social life;^[2][4][8] Etymonline dates this sense by 1882,^[3] and notes that the habit had earlier been called habitual drunkenness.^[3] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate and the RHWU, older references, date the word to 1860 and 1855–60.^[9][10]

Timeline

• 1848 – consumption of alcohol to excess; alcoholic intoxication.^[2][5]
• 1849 – Huss's Alcoholismus chronicus names the disease.^[2]
• 1882 – the disease of addiction to alcohol, by this date.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A chronic disorder marked by compulsive drinking of alcohol and dependence on it, harming health and social life.^[5][11][8]
2. Continued excessive or compulsive use of alcoholic drinks.^[5][9]
3. Poisoning by alcohol; the bodily and mental disturbance it causes.^[9][11][2]

Word family

• antialcoholism

Related words

• alcoholic
• alcoholize
• nonalcoholic
• alcohol
• kohl

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
11. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin