DISTILLATION • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Distillation

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/dˌɪstəlˈeɪʃən/ Listen

noun

Distillation n.

1.

The act of falling in drops, or the act of pouring out in drops.

2.

That which falls in drops. (R.)

3.

(Chem.) The separation of the volatile parts of a substance from the more fixed; specifically, the operation of driving off gas or vapor from volatile liquids or solids, by heat in a retort or still, and the condensation of the products as far as possible by a cool receiver, alembic, or condenser; rectification; vaporization; condensation; as, the distillation of illuminating gas and coal, of alcohol from sour mash, or of boric acid in steam. Note: The evaporation of water, its condensation into clouds, and its precipitation as rain, dew, frost, snow, or hail, is an illustration of natural distillation.

4.

The substance extracted by distilling.

Destructive distillation (Chem.), the distillation, especially of complex solid substances, so that the ultimate constituents are separated or evolved in new compounds, usually requiring a high degree of heat; as, the destructive distillation of soft coal or of wood.

Dry distillation, the distillation of substances by themselves, or without the addition of water or of other volatile solvent; as, the dry distillation of citric acid.

Fractional distillation. (Chem.) See under Fractional.

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Etymology of 'Distillation'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Distillation" Quotes from Famous Books

... the world up to the sixth century—and history and even the Bible shows us that there was plenty of it, and this the above writer admits—was caused by drinking fermented wine and other fermented drinks, for the art of distillation was unknown. And almost all of the drunkenness in our country at this day results either directly from men and boys drinking wine, beer, or other fermented drinks, or from the appetite thus formed leading them on to the use of distilled ...

— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis

... upon, and discussed with remarkable despatch. In a few days a bill was prepared, passed through both houses, and enacted into a law, continuing till the twenty-fourth day of December, in the present year, the three acts of last session; for prohibiting the exportation of corn; for prohibiting the distillation of spirits; and for allowing the importation of corn, duty free. A second law was established, regulating the price and assize of bread, and subjecting to severe penalties those who should be concerned in its adulteration. ...

— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... vessel used in distillation, C3, CM; stillatory, aplace where distillations are performed, ND.—Late Lat. stillatorium, from ...

— A Concise Dictionary of Middle English - From A.D. 1150 To 1580 • A. L. Mayhew and Walter W. Skeat

... intense in such extreme cases, and cannot be known to him whose life is counted out in a monotonous succession of hours of eating and sleeping within a house; whose food is adulterated by spices, and sauces, intolerable to real hunger—and whose drink, instead of the sweet refreshing distillation from the heavens, consists of vile artificial extracts, loathed by the really thirsty man with whom the pure element resumes its true value, and establishes its real superiority over every ...

— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... Brook: I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first, an intolerable fright to be detected with a jealous rotten bell-wether; next, to be compassed like a good bilbo in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then, to be stopped in, like a strong distillation, with stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease: think of that; a man of my kidney, think of that, that am as subject to heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw: it was a miracle to 'scape suffocation. And in the height of this ...

— The Merry Wives of Windsor • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

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