verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb

1. 1
   To process (a mixture of metals) by melting it and skimming off the lead as it cools, so as to leave the silver. transitive

Etymology

From Pattinson + -ize; named after the inventor of the process, Hugh Lee Pattinson (1796–1858), English industrial chemist.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.