álcali

Forms

álcali m (plural álcalis)^[1] Older spellings include alchali, achali, alkali and alkaly; the spelling with ⟨k⟩ lasted until the early 19th century.^[2] Texts of the 18th century stress it either alcalí or álcali; the Academy has preferred álcali since 1803.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin alcali, from the colloquial pronunciation of Arabic قلي (qily, “soda, saltwort”).^[3][4][1] The DLE's 2001 edition and DICCA-XV give the Arabic source as Hispano-Arabic *alqalí.^[5][6] Corriente explains the stress on the first syllable as the result of a bookish transcription into the scientific Medieval Latin of the time, which tended to stress such words on the antepenult.^[7]

Corominas compares French alcali (1509), Italian alcali (16th century) and English alkali (1578), and rejects the view of Steiger and Hess that Spanish took it from Italian: the dates are almost simultaneous, and the initial stress shows that both languages took it in a learned way from Medieval Latin.^[3] According to Corriente, the Arabic word goes back through Aramaic to Ancient Greek κονία (konía, “lye”), and the Andalusian association with the verb for frying, because of the caustic properties of these substances, is only folk etymology.^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DEMel finds the word as alcalay, alcayly and alcaly in the Sinonima of the late 14th century, and DICCA-XV in a text of 1440–1460.^[9][6] The first sense was the plant that yields soda: Rodríguez de Tudela's version of Albucasis (1516) tells the reader to take aquella yerua que se dize alchali “that plant called alchali”, fill a pit with it and burn it.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Andrés Laguna, in his Dioscorides of 1555, gives alkali as the Arabic name beside Castilian soda.^[2][3] The word moved from the plant to the ash made from it.^[10] From there it spread to any substance like it.^[10] The Academy in 1817 defined it in chemistry as a substance with an acrid, urinous, caustic taste that combines easily with acids to form salts, and distinguished álcali fijo, which does not evaporate in the fire, from álcali volátil.^[11] The 1869 edition named soda, potash and ammonia as the main alkalis, and álcali volátil was ammonia.^[12] Today it is a metal hydroxide that dissolves well in water and acts as a strong base, and more broadly any base.^[5][13] In medicine the DTME warns that álcali is properly only one kind of base, though doctors often use the two words as synonyms.^[14]

Timeline

• late 14th century – alcalay and alcaly in the Sinonima.^[9]
• 1440–1460 – the first record in DICCA-XV.^[6]
• 1516 – alchali and achali for the soda plant in Rodríguez de Tudela's Albucasis.^[2]
• 1555 – Laguna's alkali; the derivative alcalino appears in the same year.^[3][4]
• 1791 – first record from the Americas, in Lima: un álkali fixo.^[15]
• 1803 – the Academy prefers the stress álcali.^[2]
• 1817 – the Academy's chemical definition, with álcali fijo and álcali volátil.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. (chemistry) A metal hydroxide that is very soluble in water and acts as a strong base; an alkali.^[5][16][1]
2. (chemistry) In a wider sense, any chemical base: Neutralizó el ácido con un álcali.^[13]
3. (dated) The saltwort or soda plant, and the ash obtained from it.^[2][10]

Word family

• alcalino
• alcalizar
• alcaloide
• alcalímetro

Related words

• cali
• sosa

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. álcali
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 127
4. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. álcali
5. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. álcali
6. ^ a b c Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. álcali
7. ^ a b Corriente, Federico (1999), Diccionario de arabismos y voces afines en iberorromance, Madrid: Gredos, p. 131
8. ^ Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Ángeles (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans: emprunts à l'arabe et aux langues du monde islamique (Encyclopédie linguistique d'Al-Andalus 3), Berlin: De Gruyter, p. s.v. álcali
9. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. álcali
10. ^ a b c Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 89
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 40
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 31
13. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. álcali
14. ^ Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. álcali
15. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. álcali
16. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. álcali