alchemy
a form of chemistry and speculative philosophy practiced in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and concerned principally with discovering methods for transmuting baser metals into gold and with finding a universal solvent and an elixir of life.
any magical power or process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value.
any seemingly magical process of transforming or combining elements into something new: Through some kind of alchemy he has reinvented himself as a writer.
Origin of alchemy
1word story For alchemy
An older, mostly speculative etymology derives chēmeía from an unrecorded Greek verb, chēmeúein “to work in an Egyptian way,” from Chēmía, an adaptation of an Egyptian name for Egypt (compare Coptic Chēme, Chēmi ). Chēmía literally means “Black Land,” so called in reference to the dark earth of the Nile Valley, from Egyptian km, kmt “black.”
A more recent etymology considers chymeía to be a native Greek word, ultimately a derivative of the noun chýma “something poured out or flowing out; a fluid, liquid; an ingot or bar,” from the verb chéein, cheîn, cheúein “to pour, pour out, gush.” The Greek word originally applied to pharmaceutical chemistry, which was mostly concerned with the mixing and infusion of plant juices; and, indeed, medieval alchemy experiments frequently involved the pouring of liquids.
Other words from alchemy
- al·chem·ic [al-kem-ik], /ælˈkɛm ɪk/, al·chem·i·cal, al·che·mis·tic [al-kuh-mis-tik], /ˌæl kəˈmɪs tɪk/, al·che·mis·ti·cal, adjective
- al·chem·i·cal·ly, adverb
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use alchemy in a sentence
Alchemical songs that achieve pop universality through personal specificity.
Remembering Weezer’s ‘The Blue Album,’ A Garage Rock Classic, on Its 20th Anniversary | Andrew Romano | May 10, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTConservatives on Twitter howl derisively at these polls as if their purveyors are offering alchemical cures for venereal disease.
Michael Tomasky on the Coming Post-Election GOP Freak Out | Michael Tomasky | November 4, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTThe Garden of Cyrus, with its arcane explorations of botany and geometry, may as well be an alchemical treatise or a grimoire.
Halloween Read: Thomas Browne’s Eerie Premonition of His Burial | Stefan Beck | October 30, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTPositive thoughts for yourself and others have a near alchemical transformative effect on your being.
In pursuing his alchemical researches, he discovered Prussian blue, and the animal oil which bears his name.
The Every Day Book of History and Chronology | Joel Munsell
To behold “Diana unveiled” was equivalent in alchemical terminology to attaining the magnum opus.
Devil-Worship in France | Arthur Edward WaiteThat on the Continent it had descended through the Rosicrucians in an alchemical form seems more than probable.
Secret Societies And Subversive Movements | Nesta H. WebsterDjafar may thus be considered as having solved the grand alchemical problem of obtaining gold in a potable state.
History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) | John William DraperMoreover, no fact known respecting the pyramids or their builders is inconsistent with the astrological (and alchemical) theory.
Myths and Marvels of Astronomy | Richard A. Proctor
British Dictionary definitions for alchemy
/ (ˈælkəmɪ) /
the pseudoscientific predecessor of chemistry that sought a method of transmuting base metals into gold, an elixir to prolong life indefinitely, a panacea or universal remedy, and an alkahest or universal solvent
a power like that of alchemy: her beauty had a potent alchemy
Origin of alchemy
1Derived forms of alchemy
- alchemic (ælˈkɛmɪk), alchemical or alchemistic, adjective
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Scientific definitions for alchemy
[ ăl′kə-mē ]
A medieval philosophy and early form of chemistry whose aims were the transmutation of base metals into gold, the discovery of a cure for all diseases, and the preparation of a potion that gives eternal youth. The imagined substance capable of turning other metals into gold was called the philosophers' stone.
a closer look
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Cultural definitions for alchemy
[ (al-kuh-mee) ]
Notes for alchemy
Notes for alchemy
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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