alcohol

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A colorless volatile flammable liquid, C₂H₅OH, synthesized or obtained by fermentation of sugars and starches and widely used, either pure or denatured, as a solvent and in drugs, cleaning solutions, explosives, and intoxicating beverages. Also called ethanol, ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol.
2. n. Intoxicating liquor containing alcohol.
3. n. Any of a series of hydroxyl compounds, the simplest of which are derived from saturated hydrocarbons, have the general formula C_nH_2n+1OH, and include ethanol and methanol.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A liquid, ethyl hydrate, C₂H₅OH, formed by the fermentation of aqueous sugar-solutions, or by the destructive distillation of organic bodies, as wood. Absolute or pure alcohol is a colorless mobile liquid, of a pleasant spirituous smell and burning taste, of specific gravity. 793 at 60° F., and boiling at 173° F. It is inflammable, and burns without smoke or residue, the products of combustion being carbon dioxid and water. At very low temperatures it becomes viscid, but does not congeal above—200°, and for this reason is used for filling thermometers to register low temperatures. It mixes with water in all proportions, is a general solvent for organic principles, bases, resins, oils, etc., and as such has extensive use in the arts and in medicine. Different grades of alcohol are sometimes designated in trade according to the source from which they are derived, as grain-alcohol, prepared from maize or other grain; root-alcohol, from potatoes and beets; moss-alcohol, which is made in large quantity from reindeer-moss and Iceland moss in Norway, Sweden, and Russia. Alcohol is a powerful stimulant and antiseptic, and in some dilute form is used as an intoxicating beverage among all races and conditions of people.
2. n. In popular usage, any liquor containing this spirit.
3. n. In organic chemistry, the general name of a series of compounds which may be regarded as derived from the normal hydrocarbons by replacing hydrogen with the group OH, or hydroxyl, and which correspond to the hydroxids of the metals. Such compounds are classed as primary, secondary, or tertiary alcohols, according to their constitution and the products of their decomposition. Primary alcohols are regarded as containing the group CH₂OH, and by oxidation yield aldehyde and ultimately an acid of the same carbon series. Secondary alcohols are regarded as containing the group CHOH, and by oxidation do not yield aldehyde, but a ketone, which on further oxidation breaks up into two acids of a lower carbon series. Tertiary alcohols are regarded as having the group COH, and break up at once on oxidation into two acids of a lower carbon series.
4. n. An impalpable powder.

Wiktionary

1. n. organic chemistry, countable Any of a class of organic compounds (such as ethanol) containing a hydroxyl functional group (-OH).
2. n. uncountable An intoxicating beverage made by the fermentation of sugar or sugar-containing material.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. obsolete An impalpable powder.
2. n. obsolete The fluid essence or pure spirit obtained by distillation.
3. n. Pure spirit of wine; pure or highly rectified spirit (called also ethyl alcohol or ethanol, CH3.CH2.OH); the spirituous or intoxicating element of fermented or distilled liquors, or more loosely a liquid containing it in considerable quantity. It is extracted by simple distillation from various vegetable juices and infusions of a saccharine nature, which have undergone vinous fermentation.
4. n. (Organic Chem.) A class of compounds analogous to vinic alcohol in constitution. Chemically speaking, they are hydroxides of certain organic radicals

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a liquor or brew containing alcohol as the active agent
2. n. any of a series of volatile hydroxyl compounds that are made from hydrocarbons by distillation