Search the Dictionary

To bend or curve back; as, a retorted line. With retorted head, pruned themselves as they floated. Southey.

One who retorts.

Act of retorting or throwing back; reflection or turning back. [Written also retorsion.] It was, however, necessary to possess some single term expressive of this intellectual retortion. Sir W. Hamilton.

Containing retort.

To torture beforehand. Fuller.

A receiver, with two necks, opposite to each other, one of which admits the neck of a retort, and the other is joined to another receiver. It is used in distillations, to give more space to elastic vapors, to increase the length of the neck of a retort, or to unite two vessels whose openings have different diameters. […

ly used in distillation, usually made of glass or metal. It has mostly given place to the retort and worm still. Used also metaphorically. The alembic of a great poet's imagination. Brimley.

The retort or turning of an adversary's plea against him.

An argument retorted on an opponent. Milton.

position; an apparatus consisting of a set of similar parts; as, a battery of boilers, of retorts, condensers, etc.

A thin spheroidal glass retort or flask, used in the sublimation of camphor. [Written also bumbelo, and bumbolo.]

as carbon, a compact variety of carbon obtained as an incrustation on the interior of gas retorts, and used for the manufacture of the carbon rods of pencils for the voltaic, arc, and for the plates of voltaic batteries, etc.

prepared from vegetable or animal substances; esp., coal made by charring wood in a kiln, retort, etc., from which air is excluded. It is used for fuel and in various mechanical, artistic, and chemical processes.

oat or covering; a layer of any substance, as a cover or protection; as, the coating of a retort or vial.

gas works. It is lagerly used where [Written also coak.] Gas coke, the coke formed in gas retorts, as distinguished from that made in ovens.

A retort, used in the Bessemer process, in which molten cast iron is decarburized and converted into steel by a blast of air forced through the liquid metal.

To burn; to reduce to ashes by the action of fire, either directly or in an oven or retort; to incremate or incinerate; as, to cremate a corpse, instead of burying it.

, the operation of driving off gas or vapor from volatile liquids or solids, by heat in a retort or still, and the condensation of the products as far as possible by a cool receiver, alembic, or condenser; rectification; vaporization; condensation; as, the distillation of illuminating gas and coal, of alcohol from sour…

n or lay level with the floor; to knock down; hence, to silence by a conclusive answer or retort; as, to floor an opponent. Floored or crushed by him. Coleridge.

ng that floors or upsets a person, as a blow that knocks him down; a conclusive answer or retort; a task that exceeds one's abilities. [Colloq.]