limbec

present singular third person limbecs · participle present limbecking · participle past limbecked · past limbecked

1. obsoletetransitiveTo distill.

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

   c. 1627, John Donne, A Nocturnal upon St. Lucie's Day, being the shortest day

plural limbecs

1. alternativeobsoleteAlternative spelling of limbeck (“alembic; still”).

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

   1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

   1 more example

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

   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)