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Without a spot; especially, free from reproach or impurity; pure; untained; innocent; as, a spotless mind; spotless behavior. A spotless virgin, and a faultless wife. Waller.

e by the application of a few drops, or a small quantity, of water; hence, to cleanse; to purify. Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. Heb. x. 22.

ring reproach on; to blot; to soil; to tarnish. Of honor void, Of innocence, of faith, of purity, Our wonted ornaments now soiled and stained. Milton.

ipal law is a rule of conduct prescribed by the supreme power in a state. Blackstone. The Puritans in the reign of Mary, driven from their homes, sought an asylum in Geneva, where they found a state without a king, and a church without a bishop. R. Choate.

e to pass, through a strainer, as through a screen, a cloth, or some porous substance; to purify, or separate from extraneous or solid matter, by filtration; to filter; as, to strain milk through cloth. To strain a point, to make a special effort; especially, to do a degree of violence to some principle or to one's own…

That through which any liquid is passed for purification or to separate it from solid matter; anything, as a screen or a cloth, used to strain a liquid; a device of the character of a sieve or of a filter; specifically, an openwork or perforated screen, as for the end of the suctionpipe of a pump, to prevent large soli…

To make tense; to strengthen. Toil strung the nerves, and purified the blood. Dryden.

A product obtained by sublimation; hence, also, a purified product so obtained. Corrosive sublimate. (Chem.) See under Corrosive.

Refined by, or as by, sublimation; exalted; purified. [Words] whose weight best suits a sublimated strain. Dryden.

The act of heightening or improving; exaltation; elevation; purification.

ndense in crystals or powder; to distill off, and condense in solid form; hence, also, to purify.

Having been subjected to the process of sublimation; hence, also, purified. "Sublimed mercurie." Chaucer.

udulently substituted for something else; not being what is purports to be; not genuine; spurious; counterfeit; as, a supposititious child; a supposititious writing. Bacon.

To restore to purity; to free from taint; as, to sweeten water, butter, or meat.

stroy the luster of; to sully; as, to tarnish a metal; to tarnish gilding; to tarnish the purity of color. "Tarnished lace." Fuller. Used also figuratively; as, to tarnish one's honor.

alify, as by an ingredient; hence, to soften; to mollify; to assuage; to soothe; to calm. Puritan austerity was so tempered by Dutch indifference, that mercy itself could not have dictated a milder system. Bancroft. Woman! lovely woman! nature made thee To temper man: we had been brutes without you. Otway. But thy fire…

e Neoplatonists, and supposed to enable man to influence the will of the gods by means of purification and other sacramental rites. Schaff-Herzog Encyc.

in, cast into blocks, and partially refined, but containing small quantities of various impurities, as copper, lead, iron, arsenic, etc.; solid tin as distinguished from tin plate; -- called also bar tin. -- Butter of tin. (Old Chem.) See Fuming liquor of Libavius, under Fuming. -- Grain tin. (Metal.) See under Grain…

and silver, either pure, or alloyed in some known proportion with copper, for trying the purity of articles of gold or silver by comparison of the streaks made by the article and the bar on a touchstone.

Lydian stone; basanite; -- so called because used to test the purity of gold and silver by the streak which is left upon the stone when it is rubbed by the metal. See Basanite.