Sample sentences for DISTILL - verbalworkout.com

2 meanings

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1 —as in:
distill the whisky

Definition

to make a more pure or concentrated liquid by boiling it and condensing its vapors (as is done when making whisky or some petroleum products)

The ship distills fresh water from salt water.

distills = separates

Other Uses (with this meaning)

It is illegal and dangerous to distill whisky without a license.

distill = make

Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off:
William Shakespeare -- Romeo and Juliet

distilled = purified or concentrated liquid

But now-I want you to feel old, I want a little of my cowardice to be distilled in you tonight.
Ray Bradbury -- Fahrenheit 451

distilled = concentrated

The rafts hadn't been equipped with water desalinizing or distilling materials, nor did they have containers in which to catch rain.
Laura Hillenbrand -- Unbroken

distilling = purifying

The harmattan was in the air and seemed to distill a hazy feeling of sleep on the world.
Chinua Achebe -- Things Fall Apart

distill = concentrate (make more powerful)

I poured the distilled water and added the drops from the base formula, then passed the tiny glass bottle through the ring made by my thumb and index fingers, counting to fifty or a hundred, then moving on to the next.
Tara Westover -- Educated

distilled = purified

On the other side of the house, old Roger Chillingworth arranged his study and laboratory: not such as a modern man of science would reckon even tolerably complete, but provided with a distilling apparatus and the means of compounding drugs and chemicals, which the practised alchemist knew well how to turn to purpose.
Nathaniel Hawthorne -- The Scarlet Letter

distilling = for purifying or concentrating a liquid by boiling it and condensing its vapors

...could it be made with distilled water and...
C.S. Lewis -- The Voyage of the Dawn Trader

distilled = purified

By the evening of that day Napoleon was back at work, and on the next day it was learned that he had instructed Whymper to purchase in Willingdon some booklets on brewing and distilling.
George Orwell -- Animal Farm

distilling = making alcoholic beverages

Dictionary / pronunciation — Google^®Dictionary / more samples — Oxford^® US Dictionary list — Onelook.com^®

2 —as in:
distill the central idea

Definition

extract (separate essential ideas)

Distill the essential ideas to fit on a single page.

distill = extract (separate)

Other Uses (with this meaning)

If you had to distill your life experience into one lesson to share, what would it be?

distill = summarize the essence

These would be distilled into an 84-count indictment.
Laura Hillenbrand -- Unbroken

distilled = extracted and concentrated

He distilled this for me to mean that Judge Taylor might look lazy and operate in his sleep, but he was seldom reversed, and that was the proof of the pudding.
Harper Lee -- To Kill a Mockingbird

distilled = extracted the essential idea

  Sweet roses do not so;
  Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:
  And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
  When that shall vade, my verse distills—your truth.
Alex Flinn -- Beastly

distills = concentrates the essential

The bathroom was plastered in girlie pinups, a Sistine Chapel of pornography. Phil gaped at it, marveling at the distillation of frustrated flyboy libido that had inspired it.
Laura Hillenbrand -- Unbroken

distillation = concentration

(editor's note: The suffix "-tion", converts a verb into a noun that denotes the action or result of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in action, education, and observation.)

Dames of elevated rank, likewise, whose doors she entered in the way of her occupation, were accustomed to distil drops of bitterness into her heart; sometimes through that alchemy of quiet malice, by which women can concoct a subtle poison from ordinary trifles; and sometimes, also, by a coarser expression, that fell upon the sufferer's defenceless breast like a rough blow upon an ulcerated wound.
Nathaniel Hawthorne -- The Scarlet Letter

distil = concentrate

Dictionary / pronunciation — Google^®Dictionary / more samples — Oxford^® US Dictionary list — Onelook.com^®

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