ALCOHOL - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

ALCOHOLAuthored

The Law Mind • 1048 words

Definition

In law, alcohol functions less as a precisely defined chemical term and more as a regulatory and evidentiary category. Legal usage clusters around two overlapping meanings:

1. Ethyl alcohol (ethanol) as a regulated substance. Statutes governing intoxication, impaired driving, licensing, and taxation typically define alcohol by reference to ethanol — the specific compound produced by fermentation — often setting minimum concentration thresholds for regulatory purposes. Under federal law, for example, the term is defined in relation to proof, percentage by volume, and production method for purposes of excise taxation and labeling.

2. Alcoholic beverages as a class. Many licensing, zoning, and public health statutes use "alcohol" as shorthand for any beverage containing ethanol above a specified concentration. The coverage of a statute may turn on whether a product meets the statutory threshold, not on whether it contains alcohol in the chemical sense.

In criminal law and traffic enforcement, "alcohol" anchors the legal standards for intoxication, driving under the influence, and dram shop liability. The precise legal meaning is almost always supplied by the governing statute's definition section rather than by general usage.

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Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Any organic compound containing a hydroxyl (-OH) group; ethanol specifically; beverages containing ethanol collectively; historically, any very fine powder.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Pure spirit of wine; the spirituous or intoxicating element of fermented or distilled liquors; more loosely, any liquid containing it in considerable quantity. Also, in obsolete usage, an impalpable powder.

The gap between common and legal meaning is one of precision and scope. Chemically, "alcohol" covers a large class of compounds — methanol, isopropanol, and hundreds of others — most of which are toxic and have nothing to do with intoxication law. Legally, alcohol almost universally means ethanol, and usually ethanol only in beverage form above a threshold concentration. A researcher treating "alcohol" as interchangeable with its chemical meaning will misread statutes that are drafted with a much narrower target.

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Common Confusion

Alcohol / Intoxicating liquor / Spirituous liquor. Historical statutes and many Prohibition-era sources use "intoxicating liquor," "spirituous liquor," "malt liquor," and "vinous liquor" as distinct regulatory categories, each potentially subject to different rules. Bouvier's directs the reader from ALCOHOL to INTOXICATING LIQUOR, reflecting this older organizational scheme. A researcher encountering 19th- or early 20th-century statutes should not assume that "intoxicating liquor" and "alcohol" are synonymous in context — beer, wine, and distilled spirits were often regulated separately, and a statute aimed at one class may not have reached the others.

Alcohol / Blood alcohol concentration (BAC). In DUI/DWI law, "alcohol" names the substance; BAC is the evidentiary measure. These are related but distinct concepts. Legal consequences attach not to the presence of alcohol but to a measured concentration in blood or breath. The distinction matters when challenging the admissibility or accuracy of testing methodology.

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Why It Matters in Research

Historical sources index this subject inconsistently. Bouvier's routes the researcher to INTOXICATING LIQUOR rather than providing a standalone entry for ALCOHOL, reflecting 19th-century statutory drafting conventions. Researchers working in pre-Prohibition materials should begin searches under INTOXICATING LIQUOR, SPIRITUOUS LIQUOR, and related headings rather than ALCOHOL. Post-Prohibition federal and state codes generally consolidate around "alcohol" or "alcoholic beverage" as the organizing term, but the transition is not uniform across jurisdictions or codification cycles.

Regulatory coverage has expanded and contracted significantly over time. The Volstead Act (1919) defined "intoxicating liquor" to include any beverage with more than 0.5% alcohol by volume — a threshold far below what most modern statutes treat as regulated. Researchers tracing statutory history must attend carefully to how each generation of drafters defined the coverage term.

Federal regulatory authority is divided. The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) within the Treasury Department handles taxation and labeling of alcoholic beverages; the ATF handles certain criminal and licensing matters; the FDA has jurisdiction over some alcohol-containing products marketed as food or medicine. The encyclopedia entry above addresses this overlap directly and is the recommended starting point for administrative law research in this area.

Dram shop liability, underage access, and alcohol advertising each draw on distinct bodies of law that use "alcohol" as a triggering term but develop it differently. A definition adequate for a DUI suppression issue may not be adequate for a dram shop causation question.

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Historical Dictionary Support

Neither Bouvier's Law Dictionary nor Anderson's Dictionary of Law provides a substantive entry under ALCOHOL. Bouvier's cross-references to INTOXICATING LIQUOR, which is consistent with the drafting vocabulary of the era — 19th-century law was organized around the social and commercial category of intoxicating drink, not the chemical compound. Anderson's provides no relevant entry for this term.

Webster's 1913 is more informative than either legal dictionary for the historical meaning of the word itself, capturing the period's understanding of alcohol as primarily an intoxicating spirit derived from fermentation, with a secondary (and by 1913 obsolete) sense as fine powder. The chemical precision of modern usage — alcohol as a class of hydroxyl-bearing compounds — postdates the primary legal dictionary sources and was not the operative framework for regulatory drafting in that period.

The absence of a legal dictionary treatment is itself instructive: the regulation of alcohol historically organized itself around product categories (liquor, beer, wine), licensing schemes (tavern, publican, excise), and social harm (intemperance, drunkenness) rather than around the chemical substance. Modern legal definition of alcohol is largely a product of 20th-century statutory and regulatory drafting.

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Jurisdictional Note

State definitions of "alcohol" and "alcoholic beverage" vary in their concentration thresholds, product inclusions, and regulatory categories. Some states define beer, wine, and spirits under separate regulatory regimes with different licensing, taxation, and liability rules. Researchers should always locate the applicable statutory definition rather than assuming a universal standard.

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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

Tobacco, Alcohol, and Firearms Regulation — ATF and FDA Oversight (Law Mind Administrative Law & Government Encyclopedia)

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ALCOHOLmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

See INTOXICATING LIQUOR. ALDERMAN (equivalent to senator or senior). In English Law. An associate to the chief civil magistrate of a corporate town or city. The word was was formerly of very extended significa- tion. Spelman enumerates eleven classes of alder. men. Their duties among the Saxons embraced both magisterial and executive power, but would seem to have been rather an appellation of honor, originally, than a distinguishing mark of office. Spelman, Gloss. Aldermannus civitatus burgi seu castellæ (alder- man of a city, borough, or castle). 1 Bla. Com. 475, n. Aldermannus comitatus (alderman of the coun- ty), who is thought by Spelman to have held an in- termediate place between an earl and a sheriff; by others, held the same as the earl. 1 Bla. Com. 116. Aldermannus hundredi seu wapentachii (alder. man of a hundred or wapentake). Spelman. Aldermannus regis (alderman of the king) was so called, either because he was appointed by the king, or because he gave the judgment of the king in the premises allotted to him. Aldermannus totius Angliæ (alderman of all Eng- land). An officer of high rank whose duties cannot be precisely determined. See Spelman, Gloss. The aldermen of the city of London were prob- ably originally the chiefs of guilds. See 1 Spence, Eq. Jur. 54, 56. For an account of the selection and installation of aldermen of the guild merchant of a borough, see 1 Poll. & Maiti. 648. In American Cities. The aldermen are generally a legislative body, having limited judicial powers as a body, as in matters of internal police regulation, lay- ing out and repairing streets, constructing sewers, and the like; though in many cities they hold separate courts, and have magis- terial powers to a considerable extent. Consult Spelman, Gloss.; Cowel; 1 Sharsw. Bla. Com. 116; Reeve, Hist. Eng. Law; Spence, Eq. Jur.

ALCOHOLmain

Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890

Aid and comfort. In treason, any overt act which, if successful, would advance the interests of a treasonable design.1 Actual assistance is not essential.1 The subject of a foreign nation who furnished munitions of war to the Confederates, or did an act which would have rendered him liable to punishment for treason had he owed allegiance to the United States, gave "aid and comfort" to the rebellion, within the meaning of the act of March 12, 1863 (12 St. L. 820), and cannot recover the proceeds of property captured and paid into the treasury.2 Municipal aid. Assistance rendered by a municipal or a quasi municipal corporation, as, a township or a county, toward some work of internal improvement. Whence aid bonds.3 A steam grist-mill may or may not be a work of that nature. The legislature of a State, unless restrained by the organic law, has the right to authorize a municipal corporation to take stock in any work of internal improvement, to borrow money to pay for it, and to levy a tax to repay the loan. And this authority can be conferred in such a manner that the object may be attained with or without the sanction of a popular vote. See BOND, Municipal; CORPORATE, Purpose. 2. Cure, remedy, supply. Whence aid and aider by verdict. See VERDICT. Aid societies. See BENEFIT, Society. See DISTILLER; LIQUOR. An act of Congress approved May 20, 1887 (24 St. L. 69), the substance of which has been enacted in many of the States, provides - "Section 1. That the nature of alcoholic drinks and narcotics, and special instruction as to their effects upon the human system, in connection with the several divisions of the subject of physiology and hygiene, shall be included in the branches of study taught in the common or public schools, and in the military and naval schools, and shall be studied and taught as thoroughly and in the same manner as other like required branches are in said schools, by the use of textbooks in the hands of pupils where other branches are thus studied in said schools, and by all pupils in all said schools throughout the Territories, in the military and naval academies of the United States, and in the District of Columbia, and in all Indian and colored schools in the Territories of the United States. "Sec. 2. That it shall be the duty of the proper officers in control of any school described in the fore1 [United States v. Greathouse, 4 Saw. 458 (1863), going section to enforce the provisions of this act; Field, J. 2 Young v. United States, 97 U. S. 62 (1877). See 4 Neb. 455; 104 III. 285. Township of Burlington v. Beasley, 94 U. S. 310 (1876); Osborne v. County of Adams, 106 id. 181 (1882). • Thomson v. Lee County, 3 Wall. 330 (1865); James ข. Milwaukee, 16 id. 159 (1872); Kenicott v. The Supervisors, ib. 452 (1872); Railroad Co. v. County of Otoe, ib. 667 (1872); Town of Concord v. Savings Bank, 92 U. S. 625 (1875); Fairfield v. County of Gallatin, 100 id. 47 (1879); Quincy v. Cooke, 107 id. 549 (1882); Ottawa v. Carey, 108 id. 123 (1883); Lewis v. City of Shreveport, ib. 286 (1883); City of Savannah v. Kelly, ib. 184 (1883); Grenda County Supervisors v. Bragden, 112 id. 261 (1884), cases. 2 Bl. Com. 14. 10 A. & Ε. 590; 4 DeG. & S. 315; 11 H. L. C. 650; 10 C. B. 268; 19 W. R. 804; 4 Bing. N. C. 183. • Appeal of Penn. Lead Co., 96 Pa. 116, 123 (1880); 2 Ld. Ray. 1163. and any such officer, school director, committee, superintendent, or teacher who shall refuse or neglect to comply with the requirements of this act, or shall neglect or fail to make proper provisions for the instruction required and in the manner specified by the first section of this act, for all pupils in each and every school under his jurisdiction, shall be removed from office, and the vacancy filled as in other cases. "Sec. 3. That no certificate shall be granted to any person to teach in the public schools of the District of Columbia or Territories, after January 1, 1888, who has not passed a satisfactory examination in physiology and hygiene, with special reference to the nature and 1 Randall v. Sanderson, 111 Mass. 119 (1872), cases; 54 N. Y. 439; 25 Tex. 238; 17 Am. L. Reg. 440, note. 2 Washb. Easem. 618; 115 Mass. 204; 34 Md. 1. Sellers v. Parvis, &c. Co., 30 F. R. 166 (1886). Nelson v. United States, 30 F. R. 112 (1887).

ALCOHOLn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

An impalpable powder. [Obs.] The fluid essence or pure spirit obtained by distillation. [Obs.] Boyle. Pure spirit of wine; pure or highly rectified spirit (called also ethyl alcohol); the spirituous or intoxicating element of fermented or distilled liquors, or more loosely a liquid containing it in considerable quantity. It is extracted by simple distillation from various vegetable juices and infusions of a saccharine nature, which have undergone vinous fermentation. A class of compounds analogous to vinic alcohol in constitution. Chemically speaking, they are hydroxides of certain organic radicals; as, the radical ethyl forms common or ethyl alcohol (C2H5OH); methyl forms methyl alcohol (CH3.OH) or wood spirit; amyl forms amyl alcohol (C5H11.OH) or fusel oil, etc.

alcoholnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

Any of a class of organic compounds (such as ethanol) containing a hydroxyl functional group (-OH). | Ethanol. | Beverages containing ethanol, collectively. | Any very fine powder.

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