refine
See also: refiné
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]- IPA(key): /ɹɪˈfaɪn/
- Rhymes: -aɪn
Audio (Southern England): (file)
- Hyphenation: re‧fine
Verb
[edit]refine (third-person singular simple present refines, present participle refining, simple past and past participle refined)
- (transitive) To purify; reduce to a fine, unmixed, or pure state; to free from impurities.
- to refine gold
- to refine iron
- to refine wine
- to refine sugar
- 2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
- The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. […] It was used to make kerosene, the main fuel for artificial lighting after overfishing led to a shortage of whale blubber. Other liquids produced in the refining process, too unstable or smoky for lamplight, were burned or dumped.
- (intransitive) To become pure; to be cleared of impure matter.
- (transitive) To purify of coarseness, vulgarity, inelegance, etc.; to polish.
- to refine someone's manners
- to refine a language
- a refined style
- to refine one's tastes
- (ambitransitive) To improve in accuracy, delicacy, or excellence.
- 1815, Jane Austen, Emma, volume I, chapter 9:
- My dear Harriet, you must not refine too much upon this charade.—You will betray your feelings improperly, if you are too conscious and too quick, and appear to affix more meaning, or even quite all the meaning which may be affixed to it.
- 2007 August 2, Ben Brantley, “Titters, Snickers and Guffaws, With a British Accent”, in New York Times[1]:
- Adjust the volume, tweak the contours, refine the timing and, if need be, fiddle with the setting, and the hoariest yuck-fest can seem as dewy as a morning in May. Examples of tales told ticklingly are in unusual abundance here, with comedies for every taste within the mainstream of London theater.
- 2023 August 23, Chris Howe, “Green screen: HS2's route through the shires”, in RAIL, number 990, page 34:
- HS2 Ltd has continued to refine the designs, so that seven fewer ancient woodlands will be affected. This reduces the total number to 25. And of those 25 woodlands, 85% of the total area will remain untouched by HS2.
- (transitive) To make nice or subtle.
- to refine thought
- to refine someone's language
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]to reduce to a fine, unmixed, or pure state; to free from impurities; to free from dross or alloy
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to purify from what is gross, coarse, vulgar, inelegant, low, and the like; to make elegant or excellent; to polish
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to become pure
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to improve in accuracy, delicacy, or excellence
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to affect nicety or subtlety in thought or language
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
Further reading
[edit]- “refine”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “refine”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
Anagrams
[edit]Portuguese
[edit]Verb
[edit]refine
- inflection of refinar:
Spanish
[edit]Verb
[edit]refine
- inflection of refinar:
Categories:
- English terms prefixed with re-
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/aɪn
- Rhymes:English/aɪn/2 syllables
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- English lemmas
- English verbs
- English transitive verbs
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- English intransitive verbs
- Portuguese non-lemma forms
- Portuguese verb forms
- Spanish non-lemma forms
- Spanish verb forms