Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ Rolland2014: »Peut-être du grec ξηρίον [xēríon] ‘poudre siccative que l’on met sur les blessures’, dérivé de ξηρός [xērós] ‘sec’, d’étymologie obscure (Chantraine). Nişanyan propose un autre étymon grec, ἐξαίρεσις [eksaíresis] ‘extraction’, dérivé de αἱρέω [airéō] ‘prendre, enlever, saisir’, sans étymologie établie.«
▪ Hassan1986 suggested an origin in the Chinese term for ‘Cosmic soul’.¹ Highly doubtful!

1. »Ek-Chhi,[= 一质[質] yī zhì ?] the one-soul, the universal soul. This was Arabized as Ik-si-(R) or Iksīr «. S. Mahdi Hassan, “The Arabic word ḥarīr as traceable to the Chinese term signifying fine-silk”, Islamic Studies, 25/3 (Autumn 1986): 333-5.

west

▪ EtymOnline: elixir, »mC13, from mLat elixir ‘philosopher’s stone’, believed by alchemists to transmute baser metals into gold and/or to cure diseases and prolong life, from Arabic al-iksīr ‘the philosopher’s stone’, probably from lGrk xerion ‘powder for drying wounds’, from xeros ‘dry’ […]. Later in medical use for ‘a tincture with more than one base’. General sense of ‘strong tonic’ is 1590 s; used for quack medicines from at least 1630 s.«

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