alcohol

alcohol — noun

1. any drink — for example beer, wine, or whisky — that has a substance in it which

1.nounA2
Definition

any drink — for example beer, wine, or whisky — that has a substance in it which can make you feel drunk if you have too much.

Example

Esme does not drink alcohol because he is the driver tonight.

verb pattern: drink alcohol

The new café in Tainan serves coffee and cake but no alcohol.

Common collocations
  • drink alcohol
  • consume alcohol
  • avoid alcohol
  • serve alcohol
  • too much alcohol
Synonyms
  • liquor

    American English; often suggests stronger spirits like whisky or vodka

  • booze

    informal, conversational

  • drink

    very common in 'have a drink'; covers any alcoholic beverage

Usage Note

Almost always uncountable. The plural 'alcohols' belongs to the chemistry sense (see sense 3), not this drink sense.

Common Mistakes

I bought two alcohols at the party.
I bought two drinks at the party.
for drinks sense, alcohol stays uncountable; count individual drinks instead.
She drinks an alcohol every night.
She drinks alcohol every night.' / 'She has a drink every night.
no article with this sense.

2. the clear, colourless liquid (chemically known as ethanol) that gives beer, wine

2.nounB1
Definition

the clear, colourless liquid (chemically known as ethanol) that gives beer, wine, and spirits the power to make you drunk, and that is also added to fuels, cleaning products, hand sanitiser, and some medicines.

Example

The nurse rubbed alcohol on Tomás's arm before giving her the injection.

collocation: rub alcohol on something

Hand sanitiser kills germs because it contains about seventy percent alcohol.

pattern: contain X percent alcohol

Common collocations
  • pure alcohol
  • rubbing alcohol
  • blood alcohol level
  • alcohol content
  • contain alcohol
Synonyms
  • ethanol

    the precise scientific name for this single compound

  • spirit

    older term, still used in 'surgical spirit' for a cleaning solution

Usage Note

Distinguish from sense 1 by what the surrounding nouns describe: bottles, parties, and behaviour point to sense 1; concentrations, percentages, blood tests, and cleaning products point to sense 2.

Common Mistakes

Please clean the wound with the alcohol.
Please clean the wound with alcohol.' / 'Please clean the wound with rubbing alcohol.
no 'the' for the substance in general.

3. in chemistry, any member of a large family of organic compounds whose molecules

3.nounC1
Definition

in chemistry, any member of a large family of organic compounds whose molecules carry one or more -OH (hydroxyl) groups, such as methanol, ethanol, or glycerol.

Example

Methanol and ethanol are the two simplest alcohols students learn about in school.

countable plural: alcohols

Dr. Jamal asked the class to draw the structure of three different alcohols on the board.

Common collocations
  • primary alcohol
  • secondary alcohol
  • simple alcohols
  • polyhydric alcohol
Synonyms

Usage Note

Only this sense takes a plural ('alcohols') and the indefinite article ('an alcohol'). If the text is talking about beer, wine, or drunkenness, you almost certainly want sense 1 or 2.

Common Mistakes

I drank three alcohols last night.
I drank three glasses of wine last night.
the plural 'alcohols' is a chemistry term, not a way to count drinks.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

All five refer to drinks that can make you drunk, but the register and scope differ. 'Alcohol' is the neutral, all-purpose word — equally at home on a health poster, a restaurant menu, or in a news report. 'Liquor' is American English and usually points to stronger distilled drinks like whisky, gin, or vodka rather than beer or wine. 'Spirits' has the same narrower scope as liquor and is more common in British English ('a bottle of spirits'). 'Drink' often replaces alcohol in everyday speech: 'Do you fancy a drink?' nearly always means an alcoholic one. 'Booze' is informal and friendly, used among friends ('Did you bring the booze?') but unsuitable in formal writing. So you might write 'avoid alcohol during pregnancy' on a leaflet, but say 'let's get some booze for the party' to a flatmate.

alcohol ↗liquor ↗boozedrink ↗spirits

Common collocations

Nouns

  • alcohol abuse
  • alcohol addiction
  • alcohol consumption
  • alcohol content
  • alcohol level
  • alcohol poisoning

Adverbs

Phrases

  • drink alcohol
  • consume alcohol
  • avoid alcohol
  • give up alcohol
  • free from alcohol
  • blood alcohol level
  • rubbing alcohol
  • isopropyl alcohol

Prepositions

  • under the influence of alcohol
  • alcohol in the blood
  • addicted to alcohol

Etymology

ArabicMedieval LatinFrenchEnglish

Borrowed into late-medieval English from Medieval Latin 'alcohol', which itself comes from Arabic 'al-kuḥl' — literally 'the kohl', referring to the fine black powder of antimony used as eye make-up. Early European chemists used the word for any very fine powder produced by distillation or grinding, then for any pure essence obtained by distilling. By the 1600s 'alcohol of wine' meant the pure spirit pulled out of wine by distilling, and from the 1700s 'alcohol' on its own settled into the modern meanings: the intoxicating liquid, and later the whole chemistry family of -OH compounds.