The Collaborative International Dictionary
Wine \Wine\, n. [OE. win, AS. win, fr. L. vinum (cf. Icel. v[=i]n; all from the Latin); akin to Gr. o'i^nos, ?, and E. withy. Cf. Vine, Vineyard, Vinous, Withy.]
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The expressed juice of grapes, esp. when fermented; a beverage or liquor prepared from grapes by squeezing out their juice, and (usually) allowing it to ferment. ``Red wine of Gascoigne.''
--Piers Plowman.Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
--Prov. xx. 1.Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine.
--Milton.Note: Wine is essentially a dilute solution of ethyl alcohol, containing also certain small quantities of ethers and ethereal salts which give character and bouquet. According to their color, strength, taste, etc., wines are called red, white, spirituous, dry, light, still, etc.
A liquor or beverage prepared from the juice of any fruit or plant by a process similar to that for grape wine; as, currant wine; gooseberry wine; palm wine.
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The effect of drinking wine in excess; intoxication.
Noah awoke from his wine.
--Gen. ix. 2 -
Birch wine, Cape wine, etc. See under Birch, Cape, etc. Spirit of wine. See under Spirit. To have drunk wine of ape or To have drunk wine ape, to be so drunk as to be foolish. [Obs.] --Chaucer. Wine acid. (Chem.) See Tartaric acid, under Tartaric. Wine apple (Bot.), a large red apple, with firm flesh and a rich, vinous flavor. Wine fly (Zo["o]l.), small two-winged fly of the genus Piophila, whose larva lives in wine, cider, and other fermented liquors. Wine grower, one who cultivates a vineyard and makes wine. Wine measure, the measure by which wines and other spirits are sold, smaller than beer measure. Wine merchant, a merchant who deals in wines. Wine of opium (Pharm.), a solution of opium in aromatized sherry wine, having the same strength as ordinary laudanum; -- also Sydenham's laudanum. Wine press, a machine or apparatus in which grapes are pressed to extract their juice. Wine skin, a bottle or bag of skin, used, in various countries, for carrying wine. Wine stone, a kind of crust deposited in wine casks. See 1st Tartar, 1. Wine vault.
A vault where wine is stored.
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A place where wine is served at the bar, or at tables; a dramshop.
--Dickens.Wine vinegar, vinegar made from wine.
Wine whey, whey made from milk coagulated by the use of wine.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
a. 1 Of, pertaining to, containing, or made using alcohol 2 (context of an alcoholic drink English) distilled
WordNet
adj. containing or of the nature of alcohol; "spiritous beverages"; "spirituous liquors" [syn: spiritous]
Usage examples of "spirituous".
How could he exist in this clean, dry, monotonous, ordinary room, gobbling caramel soycorn and zucchini cheese puffs and addling his brain on spirituous liquors and brooding on the total fiasco that was his personal life, while the entire human race was kakking out?
We purchased a gallon of whiskey of this man-promised to pay Chouteau, who would not receive any pay - and gave to each man of the party a dram, which is the first spirituous liquor which had been tasted by any of them since the 4th of July, 1805.
But when he found the poor brute-beast, pale, frightened, apologetic and put to sit by a lantern on the half-deck, and when he learnt that the grape in question was only one of the nine that made up the charge of the launch's fourpounder, he at once had him seized up by the heels, ran for the stomach-pump and forced a large quantity of tepid salt water tinged with rum into his body, reflecting with pleasure, as among the agonized retching he heard the clang of the ball in the basin, that he had cured his patient not only of probably mortal occlusion but of any taste for spirituous liquors for some time to come.
During the twenties and thirties sales dropped until they were confined to a dozen tied houses in Worfordshire whose patrons were forced to consume Boothroyd's appalling concoctions out of a sense of loyalty to the family and by the refusal of the local magistrates (Boothroyd among them) to grant licences to sell spirituous liquors to anyone else.