distill

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   To purify or separate a liquid by heating it into vapor and cooling it back into liquid.

   We distilled the vodka four times to make it smoother.

2. 2
   verb

   To extract the essential meaning or core of something.

   She distilled the long report into a single clear page.

Simplified etymology

Distil entered English in the later Middle Ages and is based on Latin stilla, “a drop.” The noun still for an apparatus used to make spirits appeared in the mid-16th century and comes from distil.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary