quinine
English
WOTD – 25 April 2021
Etymology
The skeletal formula of quinine.
The red cinchona (Cinchona pubescens), one of the Cinchona species from which quinine is obtained.
The noun is either:
- derived from Spanish quina (“quinine”) (a clipping of quinaquina (“Cinchona bark”)) + English -ine (suffix forming names of chemical substances, especially (among others) alkaloidal substances);[1]; or
- borrowed from French quinine, from quin(quina) (“Cinchona bark”) + -ine (feminine form of -in (suffix forming nouns)).[2]
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
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈkwɪ.niːn/, /kwɪˈniːn/
Audio (Southern England) (file) - (General American) IPA(key): /ˈkwaɪ.naɪn/, /ˈkwɪ.naɪn/, /kwɪˈnaɪn/, /ˈkwɪ.nin/, /ˈkɪ.nin/
- Rhymes: -iːn, -aɪn (some pronunciations)
- Hyphenation: qui‧nine
Noun
quinine (countable and uncountable, plural quinines)
- (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 23842407:
- 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 1049770437; republished New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, 1944, OCLC 20350211, 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
Derived terms
- quinine bark
- quinine bush
- quinine flower
- quinine test (archaic)
- quinine tree
- quininic
- quininism (obsolete)
- quininize (obsolete)
Related terms
Related terms
- quina
- quinacridone
- quinacrine
- quinaldine
- quinamicine (archaic)
- quinamidine (archaic)
- quinaquina
- quinamine
- quinate
- quinazoline
- -quine
- quinetum (obsolete)
- quinhydrone
- quinia (obsolete)
- quinic
- quinicine
- quinide
- quinidia (archaic)
- quinidine
- quinina (archaic)
- quinism (historical)
- quinizarin
- quinoid
- quinoidine (archaic)
- quinol
- quinoline
- quinolizine
- quinologist (historical)
- quinology (archaic, historical)
- quinolone
- quinone
- quinonoid
- quinotannic acid (archaic)
- quinova red
- quinovatannic acid (archaic)
- quinovate (archaic)
- quinovic
- quinovin (archaic)
- quinovite (archaic)
- quinovose
- quinoxaline
- quinoyl
- quinquina
Translations
alkaloid used to treat malaria
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See also
- Jesuit's bark
Verb
quinine (third-person singular simple present quinines, present participle quinining, simple past and past participle quinined)
- (transitive, archaic) To treat (someone) with quinine.
- Synonym: (obsolete) quininize
Derived terms
- quinined (adjective)
Translations
to treat (someone) with quinine
References
- “quinine, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
- “quinine, n.”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2020. - “quinaquina, n.”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2020; “quinaquina, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
- “quinine, v.”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2019.
Further reading
quinine on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
French
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ki.nin/
Audio (Switzerland) (file)
Noun
quinine f (plural quinines)
- quinine
References
- “quinine” in the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 8th Edition (1932–35).
Further reading
- “quinine”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.