limbec

English

Etymology

See alembic

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɪmbɪk/

Verb

limbec (third-person singular simple present limbecs, present participle limbecking, simple past and past participle limbecked)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To distill.
   • c. 1627, John Donne, A Nocturnal upon St. Lucie's Day, being the shortest day:

     I, by Love's limbec, am the grave / Of all that's nothing.

Noun

limbec (plural limbecs)

1. An alembic; a still.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     And the dull drops that from his purpled bill As from a limbec

   • c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     the warder of the brain / Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason / A limbec only.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “limbec”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• emblic