What does carbinol mean?
Carbinol is an older chemical name for methanol, the simplest alcohol, whose molecular formula is CH3OH. A colourless, volatile liquid with a faintly sweet odour, it is highly toxic if ingested, inhaled, or absorbed through the skin, and it has long been produced industrially by distilling wood — hence its familiar alternative name, wood alcohol. Beyond naming this single compound, nineteenth-century chemists used 'carbinol' more broadly as a parent term for alcohols generally, treating them as methane molecules in which one or more hydrogen atoms had been replaced by hydroxyl groups; thus ordinary drinking alcohol (ethanol) could be described as methyl carbinol, and propan-1-ol as ethyl carbinol. Today such usage is largely confined to historical literature and certain industrial contexts, having given way to modern IUPAC nomenclature. Encountering 'carbinol' therefore usually signals either an older text or a specialised tradition, and understanding it means recognising both the specific compound methanol and an elegant, now-superseded way of organising the entire family of simple alcohols.
nounAn obsolete or technical name for methanol (wood alcohol); more broadly, in older chemical nomenclature, any organic compound of the general formula R3C–OH derived by substituting hydrogen atoms of methane with hydroxyl groups.
- The compound methanol (CH3OH), also called wood alcohol, under its former systematic name.
- In older nomenclature, any substituted-methane alcohol of the type R3C–OH, so that alcohols could be named as derivatives of carbinol (e.g. ethyl carbinol for propan-1-ol).
"Early chemists often referred simply to 'carbinol' when discussing wood spirit in the laboratory."
"The nineteenth-century monograph described carbinol as a colourless liquid distilled from wood."
"Under the older naming scheme, propan-1-ol was called ethyl carbinol."
Plural used mainly in historical chemistry texts referring to multiple compounds of the carbinol class.
"Older treatises grouped the various carbinols together as derivatives of methane."
Before it became chemistry trivia, 'carbinol' was just an old-fashioned way of saying methanol — the same wood alcohol once distilled from charcoal ovens.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of carbinol
The word carbinol combines 'carbin-', a stem related to Latin carbo meaning charcoal or coal, with '-ol', the chemical suffix denoting an alcohol. It arose in nineteenth-century European chemistry as part of a system that treated alcohols as derivatives of methane, itself historically linked to wood-derived substances like methyl (wood spirit) and formic acid. Cognates built on the same Latin root include carbon, carbide, and carbonate. The term has since been displaced by 'methanol' and modern systematic alcohol names.
Related word forms
How carbinol is actually used
Carbinol is chiefly of historical and specialist interest: modern chemistry uses 'methanol' for CH3OH and IUPAC names (-ol suffixes) for other alcohols. The term survives mainly in older literature, patent texts, and some industrial traditions.
Easily confused with carbinol
Methanol is the standard modern name for the same compound CH3OH, whereas carbinol is the older, largely historical term for it.
Carbolic refers to phenol (carbolic acid), an aromatic disinfectant, whereas carbinol denotes methanol or the alkanol class.