English edit

Etymology edit

The skeletal formula of quinine.
The red cinchona (Cinchona pubescens), one of the Cinchona species from which quinine is obtained.

The noun is either:

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 edit

Noun edit

quinine (countable and uncountable, plural quinines)

  1. (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:
      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; republished New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, 1944, →OCLC, 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 edit

Related terms edit

Translations edit

See also edit

Verb edit

quinine (third-person singular simple present quinines, present participle quinining, simple past and past participle quinined)

  1. (transitive, archaic) To treat (someone) with quinine.
    Synonym: (obsolete) quininize

Derived terms edit

Translations edit

References edit

  1. ^ quinine, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  2. ^ quinine, n.”, in OED Online  , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2020.
  3. ^ quinaquina, n.”, in OED Online  , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2020; “quinaquina, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  4. ^ quinine, v.”, in OED Online  , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2019.

Further reading edit

French edit

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

quinine f (plural quinines)

  1. quinine

References edit

Further reading edit