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All About Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxyl functional group (-OH) is bound to a carbon atom
In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms.
An important class of alcohols are the simple acyclic alcohols, the general formula for which is CnH2n+1OH
Of these ethanol (C2H5OH) is the alcohol found in alcoholic beverages; in common speech the word alcohol refers to ethanol.
Other alcohols are usually described with a clarifying adjective, as in isopropyl alcohol (propan-2-ol) or wood alcohol (methyl alcohol, or methanol)
The suffix -ol appears in the IUPAC chemical name of all substances where the hydroxyl group is the functional group with the highest priority; in substances where a higher priority group is present the prefix hydroxy- will appear in the IUPAC name
The suffix -ol in non-systematic names (such as paracetamol or cholesterol) also typically indicates that the substance includes a hydroxyl functional group and, so, can be termed an alcohol
But many substances, particularly sugars (examples glucose and sucrose) contain hydroxyl functional groups without using the suffix.
In everyday life "alcohol" without qualification usually refers to ethanol, or a beverage based on ethanol (as in the term "alcohol abuse").