Alkali
In chemistry, an alkali (; from Arabic: "al-qaly" "ashes of the saltwort") is a basic, ionic salt of an alkali metal or alkaline earth metal chemical element. An alkali also can be defined as a base that dissolves in water. A solution of a soluble base has a pH greater than 7.0. The adjective alkaline is commonly, and alkalescent less often, used in English as a synonym for basic, especially for bases soluble in water. This broad use of the term is likely to have come about because alkalis were the first bases known to obey the Arrhenius definition of a base, and they are still among the most common bases.
Alkaline earth metal
The alkaline earth metals are named after their oxides, the "alkaline earths", whose old-fashioned names were beryllia, magnesia, lime, strontia, and baryta. These oxides are basic (alkaline) when combined with water. "Earth" is an old term applied by early chemists to nonmetallic substances that are insoluble in water and resistant to heating—properties shared by these oxides. The realization that these earths were not elements but compounds is attributed to the chemist Antoine Lavoisier. In his "Traité Élémentaire de Chimie" ("Elements of Chemistry") of 1789 he called them salt-forming earth elements. Later, he suggested that the alkaline earths might be metal oxides, but admitted that this was mere conjecture. In 1808, acting on Lavoisier's idea, Humphry Davy became the first to obtain samples of the metals by electrolysis of their molten earths, thus supporting Lavoisier's hypothesis and causing the group to be named the "alkaline earth metals".