Alchemist

How to spell alchemist

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce alchemist

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does alchemist mean?

1. nounA person who practised alchemy, the medieval forerunner of chemistry that sought to turn base metals into gold and to find an elixir of life.

Alchemist in a sentence

• The medieval alchemist spent years trying to turn lead into gold.

• The museum displayed the cluttered laboratory of a seventeenth-century alchemist.

Where does alchemist come from?

Language of origin: Arabic

The word descends from the Arabic al-kimiya, where al- is simply the definite article 'the' and kimiya named the art of transmuting metals and substances. The Arabic term itself probably reflects an older Greek word, khemeia, meaning the pouring or mixing of liquids, though some trace it to Kemet, an old name for Egypt meaning 'the black land'. Medieval scholars latinised it as alchimia, and the practitioner became an alchimista in Medieval Latin and an alchimiste in Old French. English borrowed the practitioner term in the 1500s to describe those who sought to turn base metals into gold and to find an elixir of life. The buried Arabic article is exactly why the spelling keeps that easy-to-forget 'al-' at the front, and the same root later gave us the cleaner, stripped-down modern word 'chemist'.

How the word is built

• al- (the, Arabic definite article)
• chem (from Arabic kimiya, the art of transformation)
• -ist (one who practises)