Sometimes a word history just takes me by surprise. And that’s definitely the case with alcohol. I don’t know about you, but I had no idea it has its roots in, get this, cosmetics.
But yep! Alcohol is from the Arabic al-kuhul, as in kohl, the fine black powder used as eyeliner in the ancient world (which itself means “paint or stain”). So how did it evolve to its current meaning?
Well, round about 1540, alcohol began to be used by English speakers to refer to any fine powder produced by sublimation, especially popular in chemistry settings. One scientist also began using it to describe “a volatile liquid.” From there, it began to refer to the “pure spirit” of something.
It wasn’t until the mid-1700s that this “pure spirit” meaning stretched to mean “the inebriating element of strong liquor.” But note that it wasn’t used for the liquor itself, but only to describe the part of it that did the intoxicating. The original phrase was in fact “the alcohol of wine,” which was then shortened. Before this, people call the alcohol the rectified spirits or the brandy of wine or liquor.
Who knew?!
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Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary. 
