alchemy

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View all »Definitions (9)

American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun A medieval chemical philosophy having as its asserted aims the transmutation of base metals into gold, the discovery of the panacea, and the preparation of the elixir of longevity.
  2. noun A seemingly magical power or process of transmuting: "He wondered by what alchemy it was changed, so that what sickened him one hour, maddened him with hunger the next” (Marjorie K. Rawlings).

View all » Examples

  • She inherited from her father a taste for alchemy, and spent much time in search after secret elixirs and the like. —  Rousseau
  • Mr.Holmes. for over nine weeks, unconscious. and raving with brain-fever. —  The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
  • That's what his alchemy was about Okay, so now we get to it! —  AnalogSFF,October2007
  • But if the mystical work of alchemy is an inward work in consciousness, then the union between male and female is an union in consciousness; and if we remember the traditions of a state when male and female had not as yet been divided, it may dawn upon us that the higher alchemy was a practice for the return into this ineffable mode of being. —  Bygone Beliefs: being a series of excursions in the byways of thought
  • Wait! —  The White Rose
 

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Words tagged alchemy
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Alchemy has been looked up 559 times, favorited 4 times, listed 65 times, commented on 6 times, and has a Scrabble score of 17.

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View all »Etymologies (3)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English alkamie, from Old French alquemie, from Medieval Latin alchymia, from Arabic al-kīmiyā' : al-, the + kīmiyā', chemistry (from Late Greek khēmeia, khumeia, perhaps from Greek Khēmia, Egypt).

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Pronunciations

/ (ălˈkə-mē)/
by American Heritage Dictionary

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