firewater
English
Etymology
fire + water, a calque of a Native American language term, probably Ojibwe ishkodewaaboo (“alcohol”), from ishkode (“fire”) + aaboo (“liquid”, glossed in older works as “water”). A number of other Algonquian and Siouan languages also refer to whiskey with compounds that mean "fire-water".
So-called due to frequent inclusion of red pepper by traders in order to hide the taste of cheap, doctored alcohol, often including low-grade ingredients such as tobacco juice, molasses, etc, and due to the general distinctive "burn" of ingesting high-proof alcohol.
Noun
firewater (countable and uncountable, plural firewaters)
- (informal) High-proof alcohol, especially whiskey (especially in the context of its sale to or consumption by Native Americans).
- 2012, Tom Lamont, How Mumford & Sons became the biggest band in the world (in The Daily Telegraph, 15 November 2012)[1]
- Four polite Englishmen in their middle 20s, feigning like firewater drunks in a Eugene O'Neill play: it's exactly the stuff that makes their detractors groan.
- 2012, Tom Lamont, How Mumford & Sons became the biggest band in the world (in The Daily Telegraph, 15 November 2012)[1]
- High-temperature hydraulic condensate discharged from industrial boilers.
- (manufacturing) Water for use in firefighting.
- 1981, Energy Progress[2], page 205:
- A continuously circulated firewater line supplies a deluge cooling system in each gathering center for fire containment.
- 2015 March 18, Karen Caffarini, “Cause of line break unknown at BP”, in Post-Tribune[3]:
- A break in a firewater line at BP Whiting Refinery caused water with an oil-like sheen to spread outside the refinery's walls along a section of Indianapolis Boulevard Tuesday night.
Translations
high proof alcohol
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high temperature hydraulic condensate
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water for use in firefighting
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