Noun

Singular alcohol

Plural countable and uncountable; plural alcohols

alcohol (countable and uncountable; plural alcohols)

1. (organic chemistry, countable) Any of a class of organic compounds (such as ethanol) containing a hydroxyl functional group (-OH).
2. (uncountable) An intoxicating beverage made by the fermentation of sugar or sugar-containing material.

Related terms

• alcoholic
• alcoholism
• low-alcohol
• non-alcoholic
• nonalcoholic

In chemistry, an alcohol is any organic compound in which a hydroxyl group (-O H) is bound to a carbon atom of an alkyl or substituted alkyl group. The general formula for a simple acyclic alcohol is C_nH_2n+1OH. In common terms, the word alcohol refers to ethanol, the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages.

Ethanol is a colorless, volatile liquid with a mild odor which can be obtained by the fermentation of sugars. (Industrially, it is more commonly obtained by ethylene hydration—the reaction of ethylene with water in the presence of phosphoric acid.) Ethanol is the most widely used depressant in the world, and has been for thousands of years. This sense underlies the term alcoholism (addiction to alcohol).

Other alcohols are usually described with a clarifying adjective, as in isopropyl alcohol (propan-2-ol) or wood alcohol (methyl alcohol, or methanol). The suffix -ol appears in the "official" IUPAC chemical name of all alcohols.

There are three major subsets of alcohols: primary (1°), secondary (2°) and tertiary (3°), based upon the number of carbon atoms the C-OH group's carbon (shown in red) is bonded to. Ethanol is a simple 'primary' alcohol. The simplest secondary alcohol is isopropyl alcohol (propan-2-ol), and a simple tertiary alcohol is tert-butyl alcohol (2-methylpropan-2-ol).

This entry should contain ONLY quotes about alcohol in general; quotes about beer or wine specifically should go in those respective entries. An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol — although in chemistry the definition of alcohol includes many other compounds. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits.

Contents

• 1 Sourced
• 2 Unsourced
• 3 Attributed
• 4 See also

Sourced

• Malt does more than Milton can to justify the ways of God to Man.
  • A. E. Housman, quoted in Meyer Howard Abrams, Morton Wilfred Bloomfield, In Search of Literary Theory (Cornell University Press, 1972), p. 210.

Unsourced

• Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink.
  • Isaiah 5:11

• All excess is ill, but drunkenness is of the worst sort. It spoils health, dismounts the mind, and unmans men. It reveals secrets, is quarrelsome, lascivious, impudent, dangerous and mad. He that is drunk is not a man, because he is, for so long, void of reason that distinguishes a man from a beast.
  • William Penn

• Some of the domestic evils of drunkenness are houses without windows, gardens without fences, fields without tillage, barns without roofs, children without clothing, principles, morals or manners.
  • Benjamin Franklin

From Wikiquote under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Fri Jul 24 23:55:02 2009