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Firewater is a strong alcoholic drink, especially whisky. The picture in the word is that the drink “burns” as it goes down, and very strong alcohol can actually catch fire. It is not the ordinary shop word for whisky. English copied the idea piece by piece from Native American languages — most likely Ojibwe ishkodewaaboo, from a piece meaning “fire” plus a piece meaning “liquid / water.” A number of other Indigenous languages of North America named whisky the same way, as “fire-water.” Though actually, people are not sure which picture came first: the burning taste, or the fact that high-proof drink can burn. This is a dated, story-book, Western-film kind of word, and it can carry an old picture of Native American people and drink. A careful speaker today just says whisky, spirits, or 烈酒. Students will meet firewater in old novels and cartoons, not in a polite restaurant.
烈酒（舊稱，帶西部片色彩；台灣日常不這樣叫威士忌）
組成fire + water, a calque of a Native American term, probably Ojibwe ishkodewaaboo: ishkodew- (“fire”) + -aaboo (“liquid”, older books glossed this as “water”). Other Algonquian, Siouan and Athabaskan languages also named whisky with compounds meaning “fire-water.” The name may refer to the burning feeling of strong alcohol, or to its flammability.
原始詞典資料4 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
firewaternoun
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informalHigh-proof alcoholic beverage, especially whiskey (especially in the context of its sale to or consumption by Native Americans).
- High Jack had been drinking too much rum ever since we landed in Boca. You know how an Indian is—the palefaces fixed his clock when they introduced him to firewater.
- Four polite Englishmen in their middle 20s, feigning like firewater drunks in a Eugene O'Neill play: it's exactly the stuff that makes their detractors groan.
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businessmanufacturingWater for use in firefighting.
- A continuously circulated firewater line supplies a deluge cooling system in each gathering center for fire containment.
- A break in a firewater line at BP Whiting Refinery caused water with an oil-like sheen to spread outside the refinery's walls along a section of Indianapolis Boulevard Tuesday night.
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High-temperature hydraulic condensate discharged from industrial boilers.
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obsoleteSynonym of alkahest.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。