usquebaugh

• “Some authorities consider that the word is derived from the first part of the term usquebaugh; others suppose it to be derived from the name of a place, the Basque provinces, where some such compound was concocted in the fourteenth century.”

  An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800

• “Two hundred years later, the Catalan scholar Arnaud of Villanova dubbed the active principle of wine aqua vitae, the “water of life,” a term that lives on in Scandinavia (aquavit), in France (eau de vie), and in English: whisky is the anglicized version of the Gaelic for “water of life,” uisge beatha or usquebaugh, which is what Irish and Scots monks called their distilled barley beer.”

  Simon & Schuster: On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen

• “Which English word is a shortened form of "usquebaugh", which English borrowed from Gaelic, meaning "water of life"?”

  The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference

• “The dinner ended with cheese and oatcake, accompanied by a few small glasses of "usquebaugh," capital whisky, five and twenty years old -- just Harry's age.”

  The Underground City

• “While the old Professor was revived with copious draughts of "usquebaugh," Jack Blunt saw the flash below him, on the darkened seas, of a red light above a white one.”

  A Fascinating Traitor An Anglo-Indian Story

• “usquebaugh," capital whisky, five and twenty years old -- just Harry's age.”

  The Underground City, or, the Child of the Cavern

• “usquebaugh" is probably an anglicized phonetic rendering of the Irish Gaelic phrase "uisce beatha" -- which translates to "water of life".”

  MetaFilter

• “I roll your word for liquor, usquebaugh, around my mouth", the speaker says reverently, before letting the whiskey drip down into a lustrous final couplet in which the last line is spun out beyond its natural length to extend the warmth of the moment: "You are distilled before you disappear forever/like the raised glass, the sunlight on one last golden measure.”

  The Guardian: In the Flesh by Adam O'Riordan

• “The word “whisky” is a shortened form of the Gaelic word usquebaugh, or “water of life,” i.e., aqua vitae.”

  Margin Walker | ATTACKERMAN

• “Old Keltie, the landlord, who had bestowed his name on a bridge in the neighbourhood of his quondam dwelling, received the carrier with his usual festive cordiality, and adjourned with him into the house, under pretence of important business, which, I believe, consisted in their emptying together a mutchkin stoup of usquebaugh.”

  The Abbot

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