limbeck

plural limbecks

1. obsoleteAn alembic.

   I, by loves limbecke, am the grave / Of all, that's nothing.

   a. 1631, John Donne, “A nocturnall upon S. Lucies day”, in Poems, published 1633

   2 more examples

   […]some of our modern chemists by their strange limbecks, by their spells, philosopher's stones and charms.

   1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 2, section 1, member 1

   Her strong enchantments failing, Her towers of fear in wreck, Her limbecks dried of poisons And the knife at her neck, The Queen of air and darkness Begins to shrill and cry, ‘O young man, O my slayer, To-morrow you shall die.’

   1922, Alfred Edward Housman, Last Poems, section III