Dephlegm
verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 To rid of phlegm or water; to dephlegmate. obsolete, physical
"Having almost filled a vial, capable of containing near a pound of human blood, with a mixture of that, and some rectify'd spirit of wine, by guess a fourth, or an eighth part; at the end of above three years, looking upon the same glass, stopt with nothing but a cork, we found it coagulated, or of a consistent form: when the vessel being unstopp'd, there appeared no sign of putrefaction in the blood; and having smelt to it, we could not perceive that it was fetid: so balsamic a vertue has dephlegmed spirit of wine to preserve it."
Example
More examples"Having almost filled a vial, capable of containing near a pound of human blood, with a mixture of that, and some rectify'd spirit of wine, by guess a fourth, or an eighth part; at the end of above three years, looking upon the same glass, stopt with nothing but a cork, we found it coagulated, or of a consistent form: when the vessel being unstopp'd, there appeared no sign of putrefaction in the blood; and having smelt to it, we could not perceive that it was fetid: so balsamic a vertue has dephlegmed spirit of wine to preserve it."
Etymology
From de- + phlegm; compare French déphlegmer, déflegmer.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.