1. ‘A name given to alkahest’ (Chambers, Cycl. Supp., 1753).
2. Any strong liquor or ardent spirits.
Originally used by (or attributed to) the North American Indians: chiefly current with reference to the pernicious effects of alcoholic liquors on barbarous races, or in vituperative or jocular use.
1826. J. F. Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans, i. 152. His [Magua’s] Canada fathers came into the woods, and taught him to drink the fire-water, and he became a rascal.
1849. Whittier, Marg. Smith’s Jrnl., Prose Wks. 1889, I. 32. Never taste of the strong fire-water, but drink only of the springs.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxf., x. (1889), 82. He had brought back with him two large hampers of good sound wine, a gift from his father, who had a horror of letting his son set before his friends the fire-water which is generally sold to the undergraduate.
