firewater

Meaning

Noun

• High-proof alcohol, especially whiskey .
• High-temperature hydraulic condensate discharged from industrial boilers.
• Water for use in firefighting.

Origin

• A calque of a Native American language term, probably , from ishkode + -aaboow. A number of other Algonquian and Siouan languages also refer to whiskey with compounds that mean "fire-water" (on which basis noted Algonquianist Leonard Bloomfield even reconstructed a Proto-Algonquian word for it, *eškwete·wa·po·wi, although this could not have existed). Likely so-called due to frequent inclusion of red pepper by traders in order to hide the taste of cheap, doctored alcohol, often including low-grade ingredients such as tobacco juice, molasses, etc, and due to the general distinctive "burn" of ingesting high-proof alcohol.
• Non-alcohol-related senses are simply fire + water.