Arabic definite article
Later medieval Latin had "alchimia / alchymia" "alchemy", "alchimicus" "alchemical", and "alchimista" "alchemist". The mineralogist and humanist Georg Agricola (died 1555) was the first to drop the Arabic definite article "al-". In his Latin works from 1530 on he exclusively wrote "chymia" and "chymista" in describing activity that we today would characterize as chemical or alchemical. As a humanist, Agricola was intent on purifying words and returning them to their classical roots. He had no intent to make a semantic distinction between "chymia" and "alchymia".