In layman's terms, the word alcohol (Arabic:الكحل al-kuḥl)
usually refers to ethanol, also known as grain alcohol or
(older) spirits of wine, or to any alcoholic beverage. Ethanol
is a colorless, volatile liquid with a mild odor which can be
obtained by the fermentation of sugars. (Industrially, it is
more commonly obtained by ethylene hydration — the reaction of
ethylene with water in the presence of phosphoric acid.) Ethanol
is the most widely used depressant in the world, and has been
for thousands of years. This sense underlies the term alcoholism
(addiction to alcohol). In chemistry, an alcohol is any organic
compound in which a hydroxyl group (-OH) is bound to a carbon
atom of an alkyl or substituted alkyl group. The general formula
for a simple acyclic alcohol is CnH2n+1OH. Other alcohols are
usually described with a clarifying adjective, as in isopropyl
alcohol (propan-2-ol) or wood alcohol (methyl alcohol, or
methanol). The suffix -ol appears in the "official" IUPAC
chemical name of all alcohols. The