Noun

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
• sexaholic
• -holism

In chemistry, an alcohol is any organic compound in which a hydroxyl functional group (-O H) is bound to a carbon atom, usually connected to other carbon or hydrogen atoms.

An important class are the simple acyclic alcohols, the general formula for which is C_nH_2n+1OH. Of those, ethanol (C₂H₅OH) is the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, and in common speech the word alcohol refers specifically to ethanol.

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 IUPAC chemical name of all substances where the hydroxyl group is the functional group with the highest priority; in substances where a higher priority group is present the prefix hydroxy- will appear in the IUPAC name. The suffix -ol in non-systematic names (such as paracetamol or cholesterol) also typically indicates that the substance includes a hydroxyl functional group and so can be termed an alcohol, but many susbtances (such as citric acid, lactic acid or sucrose) contain one or more hydroxyl functional groups without using the suffix.

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
  • 2.1 W. C. Fields
• 3 Attributed
• 4 See also

Sourced

• The use of intoxicating drinks as a beverage is as much an infatuation as is the smoking of opium by the Chinese, and the former is quite as destructive to the success of the business man as the latter.
  • P. T. Barnum, American showman. ‘Sundry Business Enterprises’, Ch XIV, The Life of P. T. Barnum (1855)

• There's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion.
  • Lord Byron, Don Juan, Second Canto

• I fought against a bottle, but I had to do it drunk
  • Leonard Cohem, Canadian singer, poet and novelist^{[citation needed]}

• There's alcohol in plant and tree. It must be Nature's plan That there should be in fair degree Some alcohol in Man.
  • A. P. Herbert, Number Nine (1952), p. 151.

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Sat Aug 14 07:49:16 2010