- 1distill something (from something) to make a liquid pure by heating it until it becomes a gas, then cooling it and collecting the drops of liquid that form to distill fresh water from sea water distilled water
- 2distill something to make something such as a strong alcoholic drink in this way The factory distills and bottles whiskey.
- 3distill something (from/into something) (formal) to get the essential meaning or ideas from thoughts, information, experiences, etc. The notes I made on my travels were distilled into a book.
distill
verbNAmE//dɪˈstɪl//
Verb Forms present simple I / you / we / they distill he / she / it distills past simple distilled -ing form distillingNAmE//ˌdɪstəˈleɪʃn//
noun [countable, uncountable] the distillation process The movie is a perfect distillation of adolescence.Check pronunciation: distill