Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An apparatus consisting of two vessels connected by a tube, formerly used for distilling liquids.
  • noun A device that purifies or alters by a process comparable to distillation.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A vessel formerly used in chemistry for distillation, and usually made of glass or copper.
  • noun Hence Anything which works a change or transformation: as, the alembic of sorrow.
  • To distil as by an alembic; obtain as by means of an alembic.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An apparatus formerly used in distillation, usually made of glass or metal. It has mostly given place to the retort and worm still.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An early chemical apparatus, consisting of two retorts connected by a tube, used to purify substances by distillation

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an obsolete kind of container used for distillation; two retorts connected by a tube

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English alambic, from Old French, from Medieval Latin alembicus, from Arabic al-’anbīq : al-, the + ’anbīq, still (from Greek ambix, cup).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French alambic, from mediæval Latin alembicus, from Arabic إنْبِيق (’inbīq, "still"), from Ancient Greek ἄμβιξ (ambix, "cup, cap of a still").

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Examples

  • They first invented and named the alembic for the purposes of distillation, analyzed the substances of the three kingdoms of nature, tried the distinction and affinities of alcalis and acids, and converted the poisonous minerals into soft and salutary medicines.

    The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1206

  • The word "alembic," the ancient chemical apparatus used to heat and distill, had jolted the people nearest to Steven, all the men and women on the platforms; she had felt their sudden intake of breath and the straightening of their spines, could still see it in their faces and their posture.

    A Darker Place King, Laurie R. 1999

  • Gilbert White's phrase, forms the best "alembic" for distilling water from fog at all times of the year.

    The Naturalist on the Thames 1882

  • From Jabir we gain the word alkali, the distilling apparatus known as an alembic and – says Al-Khalili – perhaps even the word gibberish.

    Pathfinders: The Golden Age of Arabic Science by Jim al-Khalili – review Tim Radford 2010

  • Facts transmuted in the alembic of hope into terms of faith.

    Chapter 37 2010

  • One by one his worlds evaporated, rose beyond his vision as vapours in the hot alembic of the sun, sank for ever beneath sea-levels, themselves unreal and passing as the phantoms of a dream.

    CHAPTER XXIV 2010

  • The meat of them has been transmuted in the alembic of

    Chapter 35 2010

  • The mysterious human mind was the alembic then, as it is for us now.

    Marilynne Robinson: Religion, Science and the Ultimate Nature of Reality Marilynne Robinson 2010

  • And what is worse, too many of us have been patterned and prepared in the alembic of these limited views, however out of date they may be, and we find ourselves to have been marinated in the medieval soup of the mind.

    The 'Future of God' Debate Dr. Jean Houston 2010

  • The mysterious human mind was the alembic then, as it is for us now.

    Marilynne Robinson: Religion, Science and the Ultimate Nature of Reality 2010

Comments

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  • I first saw this in an RW Emerson metaphor. "Thus is Art a nature passed through the alembic of man."

    December 26, 2006

  • "The sound of her anger was condensed, like acid, perhaps due to the alembic of the pump case around them. It functioned like an acoustic concave mirror, increased and concentrated the tone. She had a melodious voice. Enhanced in the Zahle School girls' chorus. Conducted by Hess-Theissen. But at the same time it could be a whiplash. He had seen her quick-freeze an entire super-elliptical conference table of chief engineers."

    - 'The Quiet Girl', Peter Høeg.

    March 19, 2008

  • "Small-planter households resented their dependence on large-planter households. Although the Chesapeake continued to lag behind Europe, the arrival during the second half of the eighteenth century of the three-gallon alembic still, a series of improved cider presses, the newly developed Hewes crab apple, and other technologies allowed small-planter households to become more self-sufficient. They developed alcohol trade networks with kin and people of their own kind."

    —Sarah Hand Meacham, Every Home a Distillery: Alcohol, Gender, and Technology in the Colonial Chesapeake (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 4

    Also,

    "The invention of the alembic still, or side distilling, in particular, made the process easier. Side distilling became known in England around 1720, but it was not practiced in the Chesapeake until the 1760s. Before the invention of side distilling, stills were very large and expensive pieces of equipment, and distilling was a complex process...." (103)

    June 6, 2010

  • "Since the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the distillation of 'wholesome and sweet waters' and herbal remedies had passed from the hands of monks to those of the Elizabethan housewife. With an alembic set over the coals, she became a scientist, extracting her own vertues, distilling damask rose-flower water for use in the kitchen, making spirits of wine, aquavit and alcoholic cordial waters as well as essences of spices, cosmetics, medicines and hand-waters for washing. Platt described a way to keep orange or lemon juice good for a year for use in sauces, distilling it until 'it is done boiling' and bottling the syrup with a barrier of salad oil at the top."

    --Kate Colquhoun, Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking (NY: Bloomsbury, 2007), 108

    January 9, 2017