- This is common only in laboratories that use ethanol as the primary mild disinfectant. This would limit it to wet labs. It would refer typically to 70% 190 proof ethanol in water, rather than pure ethanol. It is an informal term, and would not be used in a published paper or in a presentation. Like other words (see OD above), it underwent conversion as a shorthand since it is talked about very often since it is used so often.
Ethanol
zero derivation verb
to spray ethanol on a surface in order to disinfect it
Etymology : the word ethanol is a blend of ethyl and alcohol, with the infix of “an” to denote the singly bonded structure. Naming this compound ethanol was decided by the IUPAC convention, so although English words as a whole are not regulated by any academy, some scientific words, especially those used for naming chemical compounds, are regulated closely. The word ethyl comes from the word ether, meaning “sky.” Ether comes from Old French, from latin aether “sky,” originally from Greek aither. This traces back to the PIE root “aidh” which means to burn. Alcohol comes from the Latin word “alcohol,” meaning powdered ore, which comes from Arabic al kuhul, also the root of the word kohl. As with other Arabic words, the definite article became part of the loan word. In Latin, the word later was widened to include volatile liquids, and later narrowed to mean the volatile liquids in wine and liquors.
Source : "I'm going to ethanol everything" said by lab member, September 2019
Last modified: 10 December 2019