distil

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
distil /dɪˈstɪl/ (US distill)

▶verb (distils, distilling, distilled)

• 1 purify (a liquid) by heating it so that it vaporizes, then cooling and condensing the vapour and collecting the resulting liquid.

  ■ make (spirits) in this way.

  ■ extract a volatile component of (a substance) by heating, often with a solvent.

• 2 extract the essential meaning of.

– derivatives
distillate noun,
distillation noun,
distillatory adjective.

– origin ME: from L. distillare, var. of destillare, from de- ‘down, away’ + stillare (from stilla ‘a drop’).