Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A strong alcoholic drink of the Middle East and the Far East, usually distilled from fermented palm sap, rice, or molasses.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Originally the name of a strong liquor made in southern Asia from the fermented juice of the date, but used in many parts of Asia and eastern Africa for strong liquors of different kinds. It is made in Goa from the sap of the cocoa-palm, and in Batavia from rice; and the arrack of eastern and northern India is a sort of rum distilled from molasses. See
raki .
Wiktionary
- n. A name in the East Indies and the Indian islands for all ardent spirits often distilled from a fermented mixture of rice, molasses, and palm wine.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A name in the East Indies and the Indian islands for all ardent spirits. Arrack is often distilled from a fermented mixture of rice, molasses, and palm wine of the cocoanut tree or the date palm, etc.
WordNet 3.0
- n. any of various strong liquors distilled from the fermented sap of toddy palms or from fermented molasses
Etymologies
- Arabic 'araq, sweat, strong clear liquor made from raisins, from 'ariqa, to sweat; see ʿrq in Semitic roots.
Examples
“Some small quantity of wine is made among them, which they call arrack, but is not common, being distilled from sugar, and the spicy rind of a tree, which they call _jagra_.”
“During this banquet, the king, who sat aloft in a gallery about six feet from the ground, drank often to the general in the wine of the country, called arrack, which is made from rice, and is as strong as our brandy, a little of it being sufficient to set one to sleep.”
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 08
“It's made with a sinister-looking black liquor called arrack”
“They drink like fish, and manufacture a bad kind of arrack, the pernicious effects of which were experienced by the”
Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and the Neighbouring Countries
“Strong "arrack" [10] is brewed in large quantities from the gornuti palm, and the scene of debauchery that succeeds the first day of the feast is indescribable.”
“After following the latter for a few miles to the west, we took a path through beautifully wooded plains, with scattered trees of the Mahowa (_Bassia latifolia_), resembling good oaks: the natives distil a kind of arrack from its fleshy flowers, which are also eaten raw.”
“[Footnote 22: Most probably what we now call arrack is here meant.”
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 08
“arrack' liquor sales in their villages that were turning their husbands into alcoholics and impoverishing them further?”
“Some might pronounce arrack pretty much like Iraq.”
“The company said late yesterday that the US Food and Drug Administration approved antiplatelet medication Brilinta to reduce the rate of heart arrack and cardiovascular death in adults with acute coronary syndrome.”
Forbes: Pharma News: Eli Lilly Earnings, AstraZeneca Receives Drug Approval
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘arrack’.
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Open List: Rice Is Nice!
Everything rice. There are many styles of sushi listed here. For convention's sake, I list them in lower case letters and without a hyphen (inarizushi rather than Inari-zushi).
Rice v...Carnaroli, ricer, wild rice, risotto, sushi, arborio, basmati, superfino, amylose, beri-beri, Carolina rice, Indo-Chinese rice and 153 more...
bilby I've also seen arack and arrak, as well as the original Indo-Malay arak. Jun 7, 2010
chained_bear "Rum or arrack, an alcohol distilled from the fermented sap of palm trees, was mixed with sugar, citrus juice, water, and spices to make punch."
—Sarah Hand Meacham, Every Home a Distillery: Alcohol, Gender, and Technology in the Colonial Chesapeake (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 11 Jun 6, 2010