subtilize

American  

[suht-l-ahyz, suhb-tuh-lahyz] / ˈsʌt lˌaɪz, ˈsʌb təˌlaɪz /

especially British, subtilise

verb (used with object)

subtilized, subtilizing

1. to elevate in character; sublimate.

2. to make (the mind, senses, etc.) keen or discerning; sharpen.

3. to introduce subtleties into or argue subtly about.

4. to make thin, rare, or more fluid or volatile; refine.

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verb (used without object)

subtilized, subtilizing

1. to make subtle distinctions or to argue subtly.

subtilize British  

/ ˈsʌtɪˌlaɪz /

verb

1. (tr) to bring to a purer state; refine

2. to debate subtly

3. (tr) to make (the mind, etc) keener

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Other Word Forms

• subtilization
  noun
• subtilizer
  noun
• supersubtilized
  adjective

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Etymology

Origin of subtilize

1585–95; < Medieval Latin subtīlizāre, equivalent to subtīl ( is ) subtle + -izāre -ize

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

subtilize subtilized subtilizing

To play with important truths, to disturb the repose of established tenets, to subtilize objections, and elude proof, is too often the sport of youthful vanity, of which maturer experience commonly repents.

From The Works of Samuel Johnson, Volume 06 Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons by Samuel Johnson

Almost suffocating under the oppression of repressed feelings, using art only to repeat and rehearse for himself his own internal tragedy, after having wearied emotion, he began to subtilize it.

From Life of Chopin by Martha Elizabeth Duncan Walker Cook

However abstractly they speculate and subtilize, there is always an undigested bone of man-god, god-man, and vicarious atonement in the theological stomach.

From Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Being a Comparison of the Old and New Testament Myths and Miracles with those of the Heathen Nations of Antiquity Considering also their Origin and Meaning by T. W. Doane

By long brooding over our recollections, we subtilize them into something akin to imaginary stuff, and hardly capable of being distinguished from it.

From The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Still, all inward life works itself out in a few simple forms, and culture cannot go very far before the religious graces reappear in it in a subtilized intellectual shape.

From English Critical Essays Nineteenth Century by Edmund David Jones

Its vividness, its fullness, the sharp bite of its reality go; but a subtilized essence remains.

From The Principles of Aesthetics by Dewitt H. Parker

The sight of the well-ordered writing-table subtilized for a moment his sense of her desertion.

From The Return of the Prodigal by May Sinclair

“Half subtilized to chyle, the liquid food Readiest obeys th’ assimilating powers.”

From The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual by William Kitchiner

Wordsworth's pantheism is a subtilized animism, but there are moments when his feeling is like that of the child or savage when he is convinced that the flower enjoys the air it breathes.

From Far Away and Long Ago by W. H. (William Henry) Hudson

Beside it relieved me from a multitude of labours and cares, for, as I proceeded, Thomas Aquinas and his subtilizing competitors were thrown by in contempt.

From The Adventures of Hugh Trevor by Thomas Holcroft

These were concessions to a ruling mode,—concessions the more readily made, owing to their being in complete harmony with the strong subtilizing and allegorizing tendencies of Dante's own mind.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 15, January, 1859 by Various

In them there is no subtilizing of human affections, of human fears, or of human faith.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 69, July, 1863 by Various

The risk in subtilizing stage character lies just here.

From How to See a Play by Sir Richard Francis Burton

Theosophy—and a large share of what is called theology—is simply a refining and subtilizing of mythology.

From The Next Step in Religion An Essay toward the Coming Renaissance by Roy Wood Sellars

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