quinine

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English[edit]

WOTD – 25 April 2021

Etymology[edit]

The skeletal formula of quinine.
The red cinchona (Cinchona pubescens), one of the Cinchona species from which quinine is obtained.

The noun is either:

Spanish quinaquina and French quinquina are both derived from Quechua kina-kina, a reduplication of kina (“bark; (specifically) Cinchona bark”).[3]

The verb is derived from the noun.[4]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

quinine (countable and uncountable, plural quinines)

  1. (pharmacology) An alkaloid with the chemical formula C₂₀H₂₄N₂O₂ originally derived from cinchona bark (from plants of the genus Cinchona) used to treat malaria and as an ingredient of tonic water, which presents as a bitter colourless powder; also, a drug containing quinine or a chemical compound derived from it. [from early 19th c.]
    • 1821, The Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature, and the Arts, volume 10:
      The alkali of yellow bark may be distinguished from cinchonine by the name of quinine.
    • 1828, The Medical Guide, Quinine, cinchonine, and sulphate of quinine:
      The quinine, being more potent than cinchonine, is generally preferred.
    • 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 102:
      In spite of quinine, the men sickened day by day. Many of them, fine, strong, active fellows, who had never known what a day's sickness meant, went down before the malarious mist that gathered in the jungles.
    • 1922, Michael Arlen, “2/9/1”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days, London: W[illiam] Collins Sons & Co., →OCLC:
      He hadn't the faintest idea what to do with a cold in the head, he just took quinine and continued to blow his nose.
    • 1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, 1944, →OCLC, part IV, page 363:
      “Die? Yes, they’ll all die—all these men. No bandages, no salves, no quinine, no chloroform. Oh, God, for some morphia! Just a little morphia for the worst ones. Just a little chloroform. God damn the Yankees! God damn the Yankees!”
    • 1979, Lucile H. Brockway, Science and Colonial Expansion, New Haven, Conn., London: Yale University Press, published 2002, →ISBN, page 127:
      I propose that the availability of increased stores of quinine under British control had a similar facilitating effect on the British colonial expansion into Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
    • 2014, Olivia Williams, “Gin is the Tonic”, in Gin Glorious Gin: How Mother’s Ruin Became the Spirit of London, London: Headline Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 163:
      So far, the daily dose of quinine had been bitter and very unpalatable. […] To make the medicine go down more easily, colonialists occasionally mixed the powder with sugar, water and gin.

Derived terms[edit]

Derived terms

Related terms[edit]

Related terms

Translations[edit]

See also[edit]

Verb[edit]

quinine (third-person singular simple present quinines, present participle quinining, simple past and past participle quinined)

  1. (transitive, archaic) To treat (someone) with quinine.
    Synonym: (obsolete) quininize

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ “quinine, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  2. ^ “quinine, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2020.
  3. ^ “quinaquina, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2020; “quinaquina, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  4. ^ “quinine, v.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2019.

Further reading[edit]

French[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

quinine f (plural quinines)

  1. quinine

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

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