http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol
Etymology
The word alcohol appears in English in the 16th century, loaned via French from medical Latin, ultimately from the Arabic al-kuḥl. al is Arabic for the definitive article, the in English. kuḥl was the name given to the very fine powder, produced by the sublimation of the natural mineral stibnite to form antimony sulfide Sb2S3 (hence the essence or "spirit" of the substance), which was used as an antiseptic and eyeliner.
The introduction of the word to European terminology in alchemy dates to the 12th century, by Latin translations of works of Rhazes (865-925), who described the art of distillation.[citation needed] Bartholomew Traheron in his 1543 translation of John of Vigo introduces the word as a term used by "barbarous" (Moorish) authors for "fine powder":
the barbarous auctours use alcohol, or (as I fynde it sometymes wryten) alcofoll, for moost fine poudre.
William Johnson in his 1657 Lexicon Chymicum glosses the word as antimonium sive stibium. By extension, the word came to refer to any fluid obtained by distillation, including "alcohol of wine", the distilled essence of wine. Libavius in Alchymia (1594) has vini alcohol vel vinum alcalisatum. Johnson (1657) glosses alcohol vini as quando omnis superfluitas vini a vino separatur, ita ut accensum ardeat donec totum consumatur, nihilque fæcum aut phlegmatis in fundo remaneat. The word's meaning became restricted to "spirit of wine" (ethanol) in the 18th century, and was again extended to the family of substances so called in modern chemistry from 1850.
The current Arabic name for alcohol is الكحول al-kuḥūl, re-introduced from western usage, while the Classical Arabic word is الغول al-ġawl (e.g. sura 37:47), literally "spirit" (the word al-ġawl is also the origin of the English word "ghoul", and the name of the star Algol).