Meanings
present singular third person dephlegms · participle present dephlegming · participle past dephlegmed · past dephlegmed
- obsoletephysicalchemistryTo rid of phlegm or water; to dephlegmate.
1 more example
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.
1684, Robert Boyle, Memoirs for the Natural History of the Human Blood
Origin
From de- + phlegm; compare French déphlegmer, déflegmer.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
dephlegm. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dephlegm
“dephlegm.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dephlegm. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “dephlegm,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dephlegm.
Source: dephlegm on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.