alchemy

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Definitions (9)

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  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).

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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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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies 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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  1. Early modern English also alchymy, alcumy, alcomy, alcamy, alkimy, etc., from Middle English alkamye; also alknamye, alkenamye, alcamyne, and hence alconomie, alconomy, alconomye (simulating astronomy); from Old French alkemie, also assibilated alchemie (modern F. alchimie), also arkemie, arquemie, = Provencal alkimia = Spanish Portuguese alquimia (Portuguese also alchimia) = Italian alchimia, from Middle Latin alchimia, alchymia, from Middle Greek ἀρχημία, from Arabic alkīmīa, from al, the (see al-), + kīmīa, from Middle Greek χημεία also χημία alchemy, defined by Suidas as ἡτοῦ ἀργυροῦκαι\ χρυσοῦ κατασκευή, i. e., the preparation of silver and gold. Joannes Antiochenus says that Diocletian burned the books of the Egyptians περι\ χημίας ἀργυροῦ και\ χρυσοῦ, i. e., concerning the transmutation of silver and gold; hence the name has been identified with Χημία, the Greek form of Khmi, the native name of Egypt, literally ‘black earth’; but χημία is prob. for χυμεία, a mingling, an infusion, from χυμός, juice especially juice of plants (later English chyme, q. v.), from χέειν, pour, akin to L. fundere = Anglo-Saxon geótan, pour, and to English gush. Alchemy would thus be originally the art of extracting juices from plants for medicinal purposes.
 

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/ˈælkɛmi/
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