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To make pure or clear from material defilement, admixture, or imperfection; to free from extraneous or noxious matter; as, to purify liquors or metals; to purify the blood; to purify the air.

ed, or pure state; to free from impurities; to free from dross or alloy; to separate from extraneous matter; to purify; to defecate; as, to refine gold or silver; to refine iron; to refine wine or sugar. I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined. Zech. xiii. 9.…

To reduce to regulus; to separate, as a metal from extraneous matter; as, to regulize antimony. [Archaic]

The extraneous matter or impurities which rise to the surface of liquids in boiling or fermentation, or which form on the surface by other means; also, the scoria of metals in a molten state; dross. Some to remove the scum it did rise. Spenser.

Kindled of itself, or without extraneous aid or power. Dryden.

iner, 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 feelings. -- To strain…

The act of adding something in excess or something extraneous; also, something which is added in excess or extraneously. This superaddition is nothing but fat. Arbuthnot.

To come as something additional or extraneous; to occur with reference or relation to something else; to happen upon or after something else; to be added; to take place; to happen. Such a mutual gravitation can never supervene to matter unless impressed by divine power. Bentley. A tyrany immediately supervened. Burke.…

Coming as something additional or extraneous; coming afterwards. That branch of belief was in him supervenient to Christian practice. Hammond. Divorces can be granted, a mensa et toro, only for supervenient causes. Z. Swift.

To imbue or impregnate with something extraneous, especially with something odious, noxious, or poisonous; hence, to corrupt; to infect; to poison; as, putrid substance taint the air.

A strong or offensive taste; especially, a taste of something extraneous to the thing itself; as, wine or cider has a tang of the cask.

To communicate a slight foreign color to; to tinge; to impregnate with some extraneous matter. A little black paint will tincture and spoil twenty gay colors. I. Watts.

ool ball, a ball or mass of wool. -- Wool burler, one who removes little burs, knots, or extraneous matter, from wool, or the surface of woolen cloth. -- Wool comber. (a) One whose occupation is to comb wool. (b) A machine for combing wool. -- Wool grass (Bot.), a kind of bulrush (Scirpus Eriophorum) with numerous c…