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Refine   /rəfˈaɪn/  /rɪfˈaɪn/   Listen
Refine

verb
(past & past part. refined; pres. part. refining)
1.
Improve or perfect by pruning or polishing.  Synonyms: down, fine-tune, polish.
2.
Make more complex, intricate, or richer.  Synonyms: complicate, elaborate, rarify.
3.
Treat or prepare so as to put in a usable condition.  "Refine pig iron" , "Refine oil"
4.
Reduce to a fine, unmixed, or pure state; separate from extraneous matter or cleanse from impurities.  Synonym: rectify.
5.
Attenuate or reduce in vigor, strength, or validity by polishing or purifying.
6.
Make more precise or increase the discriminatory powers of.  "Refine the constant in the equation"



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WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Refine" Quotes from Famous Books



... towns. Munich has little to show the American Sunday school superintendent on the loose. The ideal there is not a sharp and stinging deviltry, a swift massacre of all the commandments, but a liquid and tolerant geniality, a great forgiveness. Beer does not refine, perhaps, but at any rate it mellows. No Muenchener ever ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright

... it close with a cloth wrapped round the bung. A pint of white brandy for every gallon of the gooseberry wine may be added on bunging it up. At the end of four or five months it will probably be fine enough to bottle off. It is best to bottle it in cold frosty weather. You may refine it by allowing to every gallon of wine the whites of two eggs, beaten to a froth, with a very small tea-spoonful of salt. When the white of egg, &c, is a stiff froth, take out a quart of the wine, and mix them well ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie

... and upon others, a considerable portion of that flippancy which youth sometimes confounds with wit, she had much real shrewdness and judgment, which wanted only opportunities of observation to refine it—a lively, good-humoured, playful disposition, and an excellent ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various

... Angelo, working in an age of literary pedantry and moral prudery, fancied that it was his duty to refine the style of his great ancestor, and to remove allusions open to ignorant misconstruction. Instead, therefore, of giving an exact transcript of the original poems, he set himself to soften down their harshness, to clear away their obscurity, to amplify, ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... prepared for salvation by sending perfection embodied in Christ. We may not attach ourselves to any system or effort as absolutely true or good, nor condemn any as utterly false. All knowledge and arts are related to religion. They refine man and aid him in his emancipation from ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst


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