SUBLIMATE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does sublimate mean? 

• SUBLIMATE (noun)
  The noun SUBLIMATE has 1 sense:

1. the product of vaporization of a solid

  Familiarity information: SUBLIMATE used as a noun is very rare.

• SUBLIMATE (adjective)
  The adjective SUBLIMATE has 1 sense:

1. made pure

  Familiarity information: SUBLIMATE used as an adjective is very rare.

• SUBLIMATE (verb)
  The verb SUBLIMATE has 5 senses:

1. direct energy or urges into useful activities

2. make more subtle or refined

3. remove impurities from, increase the concentration of, and separate through the process of distillation

4. change or cause to change directly from a solid into a vapor without first melting

5. vaporize and then condense right back again

  Familiarity information: SUBLIMATE used as a verb is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SUBLIMATE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The product of vaporization of a solid

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Hypernyms ("sublimate" is a kind of...):

gas (a fluid in the gaseous state having neither independent shape nor volume and being able to expand indefinitely)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "sublimate"):

bichloride of mercury; corrosive sublimate; mercuric chloride; mercury chloride (a white poisonous soluble crystalline sublimate of mercury; used as a pesticide or antiseptic or wood preservative)

Derivation:

sublimate (vaporize and then condense right back again)

sublimate (change or cause to change directly from a solid into a vapor without first melting)

sublimate (remove impurities from, increase the concentration of, and separate through the process of distillation)

sublime (vaporize and then condense right back again)

• SUBLIMATE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Made pure

Similar:

pure (free of extraneous elements of any kind)

• SUBLIMATE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they sublimate    ... he / she / it sublimates   
Past simple: sublimated   
Past participle: sublimated   
-ing form: sublimating   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Direct energy or urges into useful activities

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "sublimate" is one way to...):

airt; redirect (channel into a new direction)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "sublimate"):

desexualise; desexualize (direct one's libidinous urges into another direction)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

sublimation ((psychology) modifying the natural expression of an impulse or instinct (especially a sexual one) to one that is socially acceptable)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Make more subtle or refined

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

rarefy; sublimate; subtilize

Hypernyms (to "sublimate" is one way to...):

alter; change; modify (cause to change; make different; cause a transformation)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sense 3

Meaning:

Remove impurities from, increase the concentration of, and separate through the process of distillation

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

distill; make pure; purify; sublimate

Context example:

purify the water

Hypernyms (to "sublimate" is one way to...):

ameliorate; amend; better; improve; meliorate (to make better)

Verb group:

distil; distill (undergo the process of distillation)

Domain category:

chemical science; chemistry (the science of matter; the branch of the natural sciences dealing with the composition of substances and their properties and reactions)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "sublimate"):

rectify; refine (reduce to a fine, unmixed, or pure state; separate from extraneous matter or cleanse from impurities)

purge (rid of impurities)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

sublimate (the product of vaporization of a solid)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Change or cause to change directly from a solid into a vapor without first melting

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

sublimate; sublime

Context example:

some salts sublime when heated

Hypernyms (to "sublimate" is one way to...):

aerify; gasify; vaporise; vaporize (turn into gas)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Something ----s something

Derivation:

sublimate (the product of vaporization of a solid)

sublimation ((chemistry) a change directly from the solid to the gaseous state without becoming liquid)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Vaporize and then condense right back again

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

sublimate; sublime

Hypernyms (to "sublimate" is one way to...):

change (undergo a change; become different in essence; losing one's or its original nature)

"Sublimate" entails doing...:

condense (cause a gas or vapor to change into a liquid)

evaporate; vaporise; vaporize (lose or cause to lose liquid by vaporization leaving a more concentrated residue)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "sublimate"):

resublime (sublime (a compound) once again)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Derivation:

sublimate (the product of vaporization of a solid)

 Context examples 

One idea is that, unlike larger objects such as Makemake, MK 2 is small enough that it cannot gravitationally hold onto a bright, icy crust, which sublimates, changing from solid to gas, under sunlight.

(Hubble Discovers Moon Orbiting the Dwarf Planet Makemake, NASA)

It was a sublimates condition of existence, the topmost peak of living, and it came rarely.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The love of man and woman, I had always held, was a sublimated something related to spirit, a spiritual bond that linked and drew their souls together.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The methane ice-rich surface on Pluto may be sublimating away into the atmosphere, exposing a layer of water-ice underneath.

(What’s Eating at Pluto?, NASA)

One mechanism by which carbon-dioxide frost might drive gully flows is by gas that is sublimating from the frost providing lubrication for dry material to flow.

(NASA spacecraft observes further evidence of dry ice gullies on Mars, NASA)

Doctor Strong looked almost as rusty, to my thinking, as the tall iron rails and gates outside the house; and almost as stiff and heavy as the great stone urns that flanked them, and were set up, on the top of the red-brick wall, at regular distances all round the court, like sublimated skittles, for Time to play at.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Describe her verse, as the critics have described it, as sublimated and spiritual, and you have described her body.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Sensation invested itself in form and color and radiance, and what his imagination dared, it objectified in some sublimated and magic way.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The light/dark mottled pattern of Piri Planitia in the left inset is reflected in the composition map, with the lighter areas corresponding to areas richer in methane – these may be remnants of methane that have not yet sublimated away entirely.

(What’s Eating at Pluto?, NASA)

The terrible sea, the frail boat, the storms, the suffering, the strangeness and isolation of the situation,—all that should have frightened a robust woman,—seemed to make no impression upon her who had known life only in its most sheltered and consummately artificial aspects, and who was herself all fire and dew and mist, sublimated spirit, all that was soft and tender and clinging in woman.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)