Ethanol is the systematic name defined by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) for a compound consisting of alkyl group with two carbon atoms (prefix “eth-”), having a single bond between them (infix “-an-”), attached functional group −OH group (suffix “-ol”).The “eth-” prefix and the qualifier “ethyl” in “ethyl alcohol” originally come from the name “ethyl” assigned in 1834 to the group C₂H₅by Justus Liebig. He coined the word from the German name Aether of the compound C₂H₅−O−C₂H₅(commonly called “ether” in English, more specifically called “diethyl ether”).

The term “alcohol” now refers to a wider class of substances in chemistry nomenclature, but in common parlance it remains the name of ethanol. The Oxford English Dictionary claims that it is a medieval loan from Arabic al-kuḥl, a powdered ore of antimony used since antiquity as a cosmetic, and retained that meaning in Middle Latin. The use of “alcohol” for ethanol (in full, “alcohol of wine”) is modern, first recorded 1753, and by the later 17th century referred to “any sublimated substance; distilled spirit” use for “the spirit of wine” (shortened from a full expression alcohol of wine). The systematic use in chemistry dates to 1850.