whiskey

See also: Whiskey

Translingual

Noun

whiskey

1. Alternative letter-case form of Whiskey of the ICAO/NATO radiotelephony alphabet.

English

Irish whiskey with a lowball glass

Oak bourbon whiskey barrels at the Woodford Reserve distillery outside Versailles, Kentucky

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈwɪski/
• (without the wine–whine merger) IPA^(key): /ˈʍɪski/
• Rhymes: -ɪski
• Hyphenation: whis‧key

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Etymology 1

Variant of usque, abbreviation of usquebaugh, from Irish uisce beatha, calque of Medieval Latin aqua vītae (“water of life”). Compare akvavit, aquavit, aqua vitae, eau de vie, and water of life from the same source and vodka from a Russian diminutive for water in reference to the dilution of pure grain spirits.

Noun

whiskey (countable and uncountable, plural whiskeys or whiskies)

1. (Ireland, US, England) A liquor distilled from the fermented mash of grain (as rye, corn, or barley).
   • 1753, “Historical Chronicle”, in The Gentleman's Magazine, volume XXIII, page 391:

     The exceſſive drinking of ſpirituous liquours, eſpecially whiſkey, is now become ſo common, that more people are killed by them, than by ſmall-pox, fevers, broken limbs, accidents, and all other diſtempers put together. And we are credibly informed, that in one dram ſhop only in this town, there are 120 gallons of that accurſed ſpirit, whiſkey, ſold.

2. (Ireland, US, England) A drink of whiskey.
3. (international standards) Alternative letter-case form of Whiskey from the NATO/ICAO Phonetic Alphabet.

Usage notes

The regional spellings whiskey and whisky (from the Scottish Gaelic form of the same Gaelic word) are used world-wide to distinguish regional drinks, for example bourbon whiskey but Scotch whisky.

Alternative forms

• whisky (Scotland, Canada, Australia)

Derived terms

• blockade whiskey
• Bourbon whiskey
• corn whiskey
• grain whiskey
• Guthrie's sweet whiskey
• hot whiskey
• if-by-whiskey
• Irish whiskey
• malt whiskey
• sweet whiskey
• whiskey butter
• whiskey dick
• whiskey fungus
• whiskey grass
• whiskey-jack
• whiskey jack
• whiskey seat
• whiskey sour
• whiskey stone
• whiskey tango foxtrot

 

Descendants

• → Jersey Dutch: wäski
• → Punjabi: ਵਿਸਕੀ (viskī)
• → Welsh: chwisgi

Translations

alcoholic drink

• Afrikaans: whisky
• Alabama: okiimi
• Albanian: uiski (sq) m
• Apache:

  Western Apache: túnchʼíʼ

• Arabic: وِيسْكِي m (wiskī), وِسْكِي m (wiskī)
• Armenian: վիսկի (hy) (viski)
• Asturian: güisqui (ast) m
• Azerbaijani: viski
• Belarusian: ві́скі n (víski)
• Bengali: হুইস্কি (bn) (huiski)
• Breton: wiski (br) m
• Bulgarian: уи́ски (bg) n (uíski)
• Burmese: ဝီစကီ (my) (wica.ki)
• Catalan: whisky (ca) m
• Central Melanau: wiski
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 威士忌酒 (wai¹ si⁶ gei^6-2 zau²), 威士忌 (wai¹ si⁶ gei^6-2)

  Mandarin: 威士忌酒 (zh) (wēishìjì jiǔ), 威士忌 (zh) (wēishìjì)

• Coast Miwok: ʔómu líwa
• Cornish: hwiski m
• Czech: whisky (cs) f
• Danish: whisky c
• Dutch: whiskey (nl) m
• Esperanto: viskio
• Estonian: viski
• Finnish: viski (fi)
• French: whisky (fr) m
• Galician: whisky (gl) m
• Georgian: ვისკი (visḳi)
• German: Whisky (de) m
• Greek: ουίσκι (el) n (ouíski)
• Greenlandic: whisky
• Hebrew: וִיסְקִי \ וויסקי m (víski)
• Hindi: व्हिस्की (hi) f (vhiskī), विलायती पानी m (vilāytī pānī), मदिरा (hi) f (madirā), शराब (hi) m (śarāb)
• Hungarian: whisky (hu)
• Icelandic: viskí n
• Ido: wiskio (io)
• Indonesian: wiski (id)
• Irish: fuisce (ga) m, uisce beatha m
• Italian: whisky (it) m
• Japanese: ウイスキー (ja) (uisukī), ウィスキー (ja) (wisukī)
• Kazakh: виски (viski)
• Khmer: វីស្គី (viiskii)
• Korean: 위스키 (ko) (wiseuki)
• Kurdish:

  Northern Kurdish: wîskî (ku)

• Kyrgyz: виски (viski)
• Latvian: viskijs (lv) m
• Lithuanian: viskis m
• Macedonian: виски n (viski)
• Malay: wiski
• Maltese: wiski m
• Manx: ushtey bea m
• Maori: wihikē
• Mongolian:

  Cyrillic: виски (mn) (viski)

• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: whisky (no)

  Nynorsk: whisky

• Pashto: ويسکي (viski)
• Persian: ویسکی (fa) (viski)
• Polish: whisky (pl) f
• Portuguese: uísque (pt) m, whisky (pt) m
• Punjabi: ਵਿਸਕੀ f (viskī)
• Romanian: whisky (ro) n
• Russian: ви́ски (ru) m or n (víski)
• Scottish Gaelic: uisge-beatha m
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: ви̏ски m

  Roman: vȉski (sh) m

• Sinhalese: විස්කි (si) (wiski)
• Slovak: whisky f
• Slovene: viski (sl) m
• Spanish: whisky (es) m, wiski m, güisqui (es) m
• Swahili: wiski (sw)
• Swedish: whisky (sv) c, visky (sv) c
• Tagalog: wiski
• Tajik: виски (viski)
• Thai: วิสกี้ (wís-gîi)
• Turkish: viski (tr)
• Turkmen: wiski
• Ukrainian: ві́скі n (víski)
• Urdu: وہسکی f (vhiskī), مدیرا f (madirā)
• Uyghur: ۋىسكى (wiski)
• Uzbek: viski (uz)
• Vietnamese: huých-ki, uytky (vi), rượu uytky
• Volapük: viskin (vo), (older term) filavin, (translation from Goidelic) lifavat
• Welsh: chwisgi m
• Yiddish: וויסקי (viski)

Etymology 2

From whisk +‎ -ey

Noun

whiskey (plural whiskeys)

1. (historical) A light gig or carriage drawn by one horse.
   • 1772, George Alexander Stevens, “The Portrait”, in Songs, Comic, and Satyrical‎^[1], Oxford, page 202:

     Ye Ladies of Lapland who beesoms bestride,
     Or, pair’d in Witch Whiskeys, aslant the Moon slide;

Alternative forms

• whisky

Synonyms

• tim-whiskey

Derived terms

• tim-whiskey

 

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English whiskey.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈʋɪski/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: whis‧key

Noun

whiskey m (plural whiskeys, diminutive whiskeytje n)

1. (a glass of) whiskey

French

Alternative forms

• whisky

Etymology

Borrowed from English whisky, whiskey, from Irish uisce beatha, Scottish Gaelic uisge-beatha (literally “water of life”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wis.ki/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

whiskey m (plural whiskeys)

1. whiskey (drink)

Further reading

• “whiskey”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Portuguese

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /uˈis.ki/ [ʊˈis.ki], (faster pronunciation) /ˈwis.ki/

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /uˈis.ki/ [ʊˈis.ki], (faster pronunciation) /ˈwis.ki/
  • (Rio de Janeiro) IPA^(key): /uˈiʃ.ki/ [ʊˈiʃ.ki], (faster pronunciation) /ˈwiʃ.ki/
  • (Southern Brazil) IPA^(key): /uˈis.ke/ [ʊˈis.ke], (faster pronunciation) /ˈwis.ke/

Noun

whiskey m (plural whiskeys)

1. Alternative form of uísque

Spanish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English whiskey.

Noun

whiskey m (plural whiskeys or whiskey)

1. Alternative spelling of whisky

Usage notes

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.