alcohol

Forms

alcohol m (plural alcoholes)^[1] Old Spanish had alcofol and alcofor beside alcohol; later variants include alcool, alcol and, in New Mexico, alcajol.^[2][3] The northern forms alcohor (Asturias, León) and alcahor (Salamanca) show the variant with ⟨r⟩.^[4][2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Andalusian Arabic كُحُول (kuḥúl, “kohl of galena or antimony”), with the Arabic article ⟨al-⟩, from Arabic كحول (kuḥūl), plural of كحل (kuḥl, “kohl, antimony”).^[5][6][7][1] Corriente argues that the Andalusian form was a plural turned singular, since the Arabic singular would have given a final /a/.^[6][7] Corominas and the Academy started from the singular.^[6][4] Corominas connects the Arabic noun with the root of the adjective for “black”.^[4][8]

The Spanish word passed into the Latin of the alchemists, where Paracelsus, early in the 16th century, used it for any fine essence obtained by grinding or distillation; with that new sense Medieval Latin alcohol came back into Spanish.^[4] The DLE and the DHLE therefore take the modern word from Medieval Latin.^[5][9] Catalan alcohol, Old Catalan alcofoll, Old Galician-Portuguese alcofor and French alcool belong to the same group of loans; French alquifoux comes from the Spanish variant alquifol.^[4][7][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DHLE's first record is in La fazienda de Ultra Mar (about 1200, in a 13th-century copy), where Jezebel puts alcofor on her eyes.^[9][11] Alfonso X's Lapidario (c. 1250) says that physicians put a stone in the alcohol they make for the eyes, and the Judizios de las estrellas (1254–1260) use it for the black mineral, galena or antimony.^[11][12]

Semantic evolution

Corominas dates to 1278 both the mineral and the black eye powder.^[4][8] Nebrija glossed it as Latin antimonium, and Covarrubias (1611) described the powder applied with a fennel stick to darken the lashes.^[13][14] The chemists' sense of any essence obtained by grinding, sublimation or distillation is in the Diccionario de Autoridades (1726).^[4][15] Spirit of wine, the modern sense, is in a 1703 translation of Lemery, and Corominas dates it to 1786.^[9][4] The Academy defined it as a liquid from the distillation of wine from 1817, and today it names the chemical class, ethyl alcohol and alcoholic drink; the cosmetic sense is now called kohl.^[16][5] The pronunciation /alˈkol/, with the two vowels merged, is common.^[1][17]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – La fazienda de Ultra Mar has alcofor for eye paint (in a 13th-century copy).^[9]
• c. 1250 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses alcohol for the eye powder.^[11]
• 1254–1260 – the Judizios de las estrellas use it for the black mineral.^[9]
• 1278 – Corominas's first date for the word and for the verb alcoholar.^[8]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's Spanish–Latin dictionary glosses it as antimonium.^[13]
• 1625 – first record in the Americas, among the impurities of ores.^[18]
• 1703 – a translation of Lemery uses it for spirit of wine.^[9]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the chemists' sense.^[15]
• 1817 – the Academy defines it as the distilled liquid of wine.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. (chemistry) Any of the organic compounds with a hydroxyl group (hidroxilo) bound to an aliphatic radical.^[5]
2. ethanol, ethyl alcohol: Limpió la herida con alcohol.^[5][1]
3. An alcoholic drink, as against those without alcohol: No toma alcohol cuando conduce.^[5]
4. (obsolete) kohl, the eye cosmetic.^[5][1]
5. (mineralogy, dated) galena.^[19][1]

Word family

• alcoholar
• alcohólico
• alcoholismo
• alcoholemia
• alcoholimetría
• alcoholímetro
• alcoholista
• alcoholizar

Related words

• kohl
• Medieval Latin alcohol

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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. alcohol
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. alcohol
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 135
5. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. alcohol
6. ^ a b c Corriente, Federico (1999), Diccionario de arabismos y voces afines en iberorromance, Madrid: Gredos, p. 140
7. ^ a b c 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. alcohol
8. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. alcohol
9. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. alcohol
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. alcohol
12. ^ Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. alcohol
13. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 289
14. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 115
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 184
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 41
17. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. alcohol
18. ^ 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. alcohol
19. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. alcohol