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alchemy
[ al-kuh-mee ]
noun
- 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.
alchemy
/ ˈælkəmɪ; ælˈkɛmɪk /
noun
- 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
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.
Notes
Derived Forms
- alchemic, adjective
Other Words From
- al·chem·ic [al-, kem, -ik], al·chemi·cal al·che·mis·tic [al-k, uh, -, mis, -tik], alche·misti·cal adjective
- al·chemi·cal·ly adverb
Word History and Origins
Origin of alchemy1
Word History and Origins
Origin of alchemy1
A Closer Look
Example Sentences
Their work revealed the strange alchemy at work inside the nucleus of an atom.
Pleasantly chewy, it melts easily on the tongue, a seemingly magical alchemy of sugar and protein.
There are so many scenes — Majella sitting in her late grandmother’s farmhouse, having sex in the storeroom or recalling a batch of drowned kittens — that feel like literary alchemy.
Cheesemaking, mankind’s long-running alchemy of controlled rot, involves transforming perishable milk into something exponentially more complex, long-lasting, and valuable.
The result should be an earnest historical novel about the brutal struggle for fair wages, but through the alchemy of Walter’s voice, “The Cold Millions” is a work of irresistible characters, harrowing adventures and rip-roaring fun.
We remain constantly curious about what great designers will turn out from their capricious artistic alchemy.
There is a sort of alchemy of the masala in some ways, and that journey is parallel to the emotional journey he takes.
He is also a successful author whose 2005 debut The Alchemy of Desire was published to wide acclaim.
Sarah Norris on the alchemy of being young and literary and finding your way in New York.
What will be the alchemy of Cowell, Randy Jackson, Kara DioGuardi, and Ellen DeGeneres this season?
But a doctor Faustus, in his cell littered with books and instruments of alchemy, would love always to have a cat for a companion.
It is for them to protect themselves from death,—the whole purpose of alchemy lies there, sire.
Among his minor works occurs a treatise on alchemy, which seems to show that he was a devout believer in the science.
But, like so many master-minds of the Middle Ages, he was unable wholly to resist the fascinations of alchemy and astrology.
The earlier alchemists knew nothing of its theosophic doctrines; and the earlier Rosicrucians did not dabble in alchemy.
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