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refine

verb
/ɹɪˈfaɪn/

Etymology

From re- + fine.

  1. derived from fīniō — “to finish”
  2. derived from fin — “fine, minute, exact”
  3. inherited from fin
  4. prefixed as refine — “re + fine”

Definitions

  1. To purify

    To purify; reduce to a fine, unmixed, or pure state; to free from impurities.

    • to refine gold
    • to refine iron
    • to refine wine

  2. To become pure

    To become pure; to be cleared of impure matter.

  3. To purify of coarseness, vulgarity, inelegance, etc.

    To purify of coarseness, vulgarity, inelegance, etc.; to polish.

    • to refine someone's manners
    • to refine a language
    • a refined style
  4. ›+ 2 more definitions

    1. To improve in accuracy, delicacy, or excellence.

      • My dear Harriet, you must not refine too much upon this charade.—You will betray your feelings improperly, if you are too conscious and too quick, and appear to affix more meaning, or even quite all the meaning which may be affixed to it.
      • HS2 Ltd has continued to refine the designs, so that seven fewer ancient woodlands will be affected. This reduces the total number to 25. And of those 25 woodlands, 85% of the total area will remain untouched by HS2.

    2. To make nice or subtle.

      • to refine thought
      • to refine someone's language

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at refine. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01refine02inelegance03inelegant04elegant05elegance06refinement07refining

A definitional loop anchored at refine. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

7 hops · closes at refine

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA