distill
Americanverb (used with object)
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distils,
present (3rd person singular)
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distilled,
past participle, past
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distilling
present participle
-
to subject to a process of vaporization and subsequent condensation, as for purification or concentration.
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to extract the volatile components of by distillation; transform by distillation.
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to concentrate, purify, or obtain by or as by distillation.
to distill whiskey from mash.
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to remove by distillation (usually followed by off orout ).
to distill out impurities.
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to extract the essential elements of; refine; abstract.
She managed to distill her ideas into one succinct article.
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to let fall in drops; give forth in or as in drops.
The cool of the night distills the dew.
verb (used without object)
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distils,
present (3rd person singular)
-
distilled,
past participle, past
-
distilling
present participle
-
to undergo or perform distillation.
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to become vaporized and then condensed in distillation.
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to drop, pass, or condense as a distillate.
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to fall in drops; trickle; exude.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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redistillablenessnoun
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redistillverb (used with object)
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distillableadjective
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nondistillableadjective
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redistillableadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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distillsimple
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distilssimple
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have distilledperfect
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has distilledperfect
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am distillingprogressive
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are distillingprogressive
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is distillingprogressive
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have been distillingperfect progressive
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has been distillingperfect progressive
Past
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distilledsimple
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had distilledperfect
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was distillingprogressive
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were distillingprogressive
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had been distillingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of distill
First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English distillen (from Anglo-French distiller ), from Latin distillāre, variant of dēstillāre, equivalent to dē- de- + stillāre to drip
Explanation
When you distill something, you are boiling it down to its essence — its most important part. Whether it's alcohol or ideas, the distilled part is the most powerful. The original meaning of distill comes from the process of making alcohol, known as distilling, in which all the impurities of a substance are vaporized and its pure, high-alcohol condensation collected. Distill eventually came to mean any process in which the essence of something is revealed. If you take notes at a lecture and then turn them into an essay for your professor, you're distilling your notes into something more pure and exact. At least, that's what you hope you're doing.
Vocabulary lists containing distill
The Cay
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "D"
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Life As We Knew It
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
When AI developers distill closed models such as Claude, it is a tougher question.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 9, 2026
Scientists then distill that blood into antivenom for humans.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
Patience; communication, organizational and presentation skills; the ability to distill complex ideas; and project-management skills are all qualities and skills that can be valuable in many other professions.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 9, 2026
For the predictions to be accurate, or efficient, the platforms rely on a pool of traders to distill the wisdom of the crowd.
From Barron's ● Feb. 27, 2026
For hundreds of years, alchemists had been trying to distill azoth.
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
The report, culminating a two-year evaluation of the 2015 Paris climate agreement goals, distils thousands of submissions from experts, governments and campaigners.
From Reuters ● Sep. 8, 2023
Sullivan says that the result he is proudest of is one he obtained in 1977, which distils the crucial properties of a space using a tool called rational homotopy.
From Scientific American ● Mar. 28, 2022
Shot, edited and directed by Matthew Killip, son of the revered British documentary photographer, Chris Killip, it distils Shepherd’s 30-year quest into just 16 magical minutes.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 23, 2020
That she gets there via the dancefloor is no surprise, and she distils those experiences into a luminous record that's as sticky as the title suggests.
From BBC ● Dec. 21, 2018
Well, there may be a poison that distils itself out of good things; in an age when the existence of ptomaines is a mystery we should not wonder at anything!
From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker
He distilled the disagreement into the dissent’s sharpest line.
From Slate ● Sep. 1, 2026
Cowin’s own restraint and withholding yield images of distilled power.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 25, 2026
I’ve distilled their wisdom into three nonnegotiable rules that I now live by.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 4, 2026
Kratsios said on X that the US government has information that Moonshot AI "distilled" capabilities from Anthropic's Fable AI for the development of its K3 model.
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
Or maybe it was always there, simmering inside, waiting to be recognized, waiting to join the distilled hum of a hundred million other souls that plays somewhere just beyond our reach.
From "Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet" by Joanne Proulx
Chinese developers have relied on a mix of ingenuity, state support, open-source sharing and distilling from U.S. models.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
Transformative technologies never arrive fully formed; they rely upon determined practitioners committed to the painstaking work of distilling extravagant promise into daily practice.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 8, 2026
With the help of large handheld food mixers, they carefully grind the mixture of dried Californian grapes and water, which they then ferment before distilling it in a large still imported from Germany.
From Barron's ● May 2, 2026
John D. Rockefeller was 24 in 1863 when he invested in the emerging new technology of distilling crude into kerosene.
From Barron's ● May 2, 2026
He was distilling azoth, as he had done hundreds of times before.
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
