French chemists Jean-Baptiste Dumas and Eugene Peligot, after determining methanols chemical structure, introduced "methylene" from the Greek methy "wine" and hȳlē' "wood, patch of trees" with the intention of highlighting its origins, "alcohol made from wood (substance)". The term "methyl" was derived in about 1840 by back-formation from "methylene", and was then applied to describe "methyl alcohol" (which since 1892 is called "methanol").
Methyl is the IUPAC nomenclature of organic chemistry term for an alkane (or alkyl) molecule, using the prefix "meth-" to indicate the presence of a single carbon.