Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English homepage

Date: 1300-1400
Language: Old French
Origin: distiller, from Latin stillare 'to fall in drops'

distill

 verb
     
NEW! See related topics: CHEMISTRYTECHNOLOGY
dis‧till , distil past tense and past participle distilled, present participle distilling [transitive]
1HCT to make a liquid such as water or alcohol more pure by heating it so that it becomes a gas and then letting it cool. Drinks such as whisky are made this way:
distilled water
2 to remove a chemical substance from a plant, for example by heating or pressing it
3 to get the main ideas or facts from a much larger amount of information
distill something into something
The notes I had brought back were waiting to be distilled into a book.
—distillation noun [uncountable and countable]
Definition from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Advanced Learner's Dictionary.
 
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