distillation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English distillacioun,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Latin distillātiō,^[3][4][5] also dēstillātiō (“catarrh; in Late Latin, a dripping down”).^[6][2] Etymonline names Medieval Latin as the immediate source,^[7] the Dictionary.com text puts Anglo-French between Latin and Middle English,^[3] and Klein takes the word through French,^[8] where the OED finds distillation only from the 15th century.^[5] The Latin noun of action is formed on the past-participle stem of distillō (“to trickle down in tiny drops”),^[7][5][4] from dis- (“apart”) and stillō (“to drip”), from stilla (“a drop”), which is of uncertain origin.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Turning a substance into vapour by heat and condensing the vapour back into a liquid: in 1393, in Gower's Confessio Amantis,^[5] the only use in Gower.^[9] Etymonline likewise dates the word to the late 14th century, as "process or act of distilling",^[7] and the Dictionary.com text gives 1350–1400.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The Latin verb is about dripping, and English kept that sense alongside the chemical one: Lydgate's Pilgrimage, in a manuscript of before 1475, has crystal tears that fall by dystyllacioun,^[2] and the OED records "falling or flowing drop by drop" from before 1500.^[5] Latin also used the noun for a catarrh,^[6] a sense recorded in English from 1541 to 1755.^[5] From the process, the word passed to its result, as a distillate.^[7][2][5] It then became figurative, first for a refined essence or extract in Milton (1650)^[5] and later, from 1835, for the process itself.^[5] Johnson (1755) still separates the dropping senses from "the act of distilling by fire" and "the substance drawn by the still".^[10] Modern dictionaries lead with the industrial process, used for purifying and for separating mixtures by their boiling points.^[4][11]

Timeline

• 1393 – vaporizing a substance by heat and condensing the vapour.^[5]
• early 15th century – the product of distilling.^[7] The OED's first record of this sense as a distillate is from 1678.^[5]
• before 1475 – falling in drops, in Lydgate.^[2] The OED has it from before 1500.^[5]
• 1541 – a catarrh, a sense that lasted until 1755.^[5]
• 1609 – what distils or forms by distilling, in Shakespeare's Sonnets.^[5]
• 1650 – figurative, a refined or concentrated essence, in Milton.^[5]
• 1835 – figurative use of the process.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The process of heating a liquid or solid until it gives off vapor and then condensing the vapour, used especially to purify something: the distillation of seawater.^[11][4][5]
2. The separation of a mixture by the different boiling points of its parts: see fractional distillation.^[11][6]
3. The product of this process; a distillate.^[11][4][6]
4. The refined, concentrated essence of something: The memoir is a distillation of forty years at sea.^[5][6]
5. The falling or flowing of a liquid drop by drop.^[5][6]
6. (obsolete, 1541–1755) A catarrh.^[5][6]

Word family

• microdistillation
• redistillation
• destructive distillation
• dry distillation
• fractional distillation
• vacuum distillation

Related words

• distill
• distillate
• distillery
• instill

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins