alchemy

• n.魔法; 魔法の力

アラビア語の定冠詞alから。 根元chem, 吹き込む; 根元found, 吹き込む; confound,混乱させるを参照。現代化学は錬金術から発展した。

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 16 th-century folio volumes on alchemy .

リチャードは私に16世紀の3巻の錬金術に関するオープンブックのことを教えてくれた。

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

彼らを激励するのは錬金術であり、普通の金属を金に変える「科学」である。

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

中世には宗教と錬金術が密接に関連していた。

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

ある政治的魔力によって人々が平等になることを想像させてください。

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

錬金術の究極の目的の1つは鉛を金に変換することです。