alchemy

• n. 點金術；魔力

來自阿拉伯語。al, 阿拉伯定冠詞. 詞根chem, 注入，同詞根found, 注入，見confound，困惑的。現代化學由煉金術發展而來。

alchemy

alchemy: [14] Alchemy comes, via Old French alkemie and medieval Latin alchimia, from Arabic alkīmīā. Broken down into its component parts, this represents Arabic al ‘the’ and kīmīā, a word borrowed by Arabic from Greek khēmíā ‘alchemy’ – that is, the art of transmuting base metals into gold. (It has been suggested that khēmīā is the same word as Khēmīā, the ancient name for Egypt, on the grounds that alchemy originated in Egypt, but it seems more likely that it derives from Greek khūmós ‘fluid’ – source of English chyme [17] – itself based on the verb khein ‘pour’).

Modern English chemistry comes not directly from Greek khēmíā, but from alchemy, with the loss of the first syllable.
=> chemistry, chyme

alchemy (n.)

mid-14c., from Old French alchimie (14c.), alquemie (13c.), from Medieval Latin alkimia, from Arabic al-kimiya, from Greek khemeioa (found c.300 C.E. in a decree of Diocletian against "the old writings of the Egyptians"), all meaning "alchemy." Perhaps from an old name for Egypt (Khemia, literally "land of black earth," found in Plutarch), or from Greek khymatos "that which is poured out," from khein "to pour," related to khymos "juice, sap" [Klein, citing W. Muss-Arnolt, calls this folk etymology]. The word seems to have elements of both origins.

Mahn ... concludes, after an elaborate investigation, that Gr. khymeia was probably the original, being first applied to pharmaceutical chemistry, which was chiefly concerned with juices or infusions of plants; that the pursuits of the Alexandrian alchemists were a subsequent development of chemical study, and that the notoriety of these may have caused the name of the art to be popularly associated with the ancient name of Egypt. [OED]

The al- is the Arabic definite article, "the." The art and the name were adopted by the Arabs from Alexandrians and thence returned to Europe via Spain. Alchemy was the "chemistry" of the Middle Ages and early modern times; since c. 1600 the word has been applied distinctively to the pursuit of the transmutation of baser metals into gold, which, along with the search for the universal solvent and the panacea, were the chief occupations of early chemistry.

1. Richard told me of three 16th-century folio volumes on alchemy.

理查德告訴過我16世紀的三卷關於煉金術的對開本書籍的事。

來自柯林斯例句

2. What spurred them on was alchemy, the'science " of changing ordinary metals into gold.

激勵他們的是煉金術, 即把普通金屬變為金子的 “ 科學 ”.

來自《簡明英漢詞典》

3. Religion had an intimate association with alchemy during the Middle Ages.

在中世紀,宗教和煉金術密切相聯.

來自《現代漢英綜合大詞典》

4. Let us imagine that by some political alchemy it had been possible to make all men equal.

讓我們想象通過某種政治魔力能使人人平等。

來自柯林斯例句

5. One of the supreme quests of alchemy is to transmute lead into gold.

煉金術的終極目的之一是將鉛轉化為金。

來自辭典例句