Alcoholic

How to spell alcoholic

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce alcoholic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does alcoholic mean?

1. adjectiveContaining or relating to alcohol.
2. nounA person who is dependent on or addicted to alcohol.

Alcoholic in a sentence

• adjective

  The bar offers several non-alcoholic cocktails for designated drivers.

• noun

  As a recovering alcoholic, he avoids social events that centre on drinking.

• adjective

  The recipe calls for an alcoholic base such as brandy or rum.

• noun

  The support group welcomes any alcoholic seeking to stay sober.

Where does alcoholic come from?

Language of origin: Arabic

This word builds on 'alcohol', which travelled into European languages from the Arabic al-kuhl, where al is simply 'the' and kuhl referred to a fine powder of antimony used as eye make-up, the cosmetic still known as kohl. Medieval alchemists borrowed the term for any substance refined to a fine essence by distillation or sublimation, and through Latin and French it gradually narrowed to mean the intoxicating spirit distilled from wine. By the early 1700s 'alcohol of wine' meant the pure spirit itself, and the meaning settled on the familiar drinkable substance. The suffix -ic, from Latin -icus and Greek -ikos meaning 'relating to', was added in the nineteenth century to form 'alcoholic', first as an adjective and then as a noun for a person dependent on drink. The hidden Arabic article 'al' explains why the spelling keeps a single l after the first syllable, while the doubled look that catches people out is really just the -hol- plus -ic ending.

How the word is built

• alcohol (from Arabic al-kuhl: the kohl, a fine powder)
• -ic (adjective/noun suffix meaning 'relating to')