alembic

noun

Etymology: From French alambic, from Medieval Latin alembīcus, from Arabic الإِنْبِيق (al-ʔinbīq), from Ancient Greek ἄμβιξ (ámbix, “cup, cap of a still”). Doublet of ambix and lambic.

1. An early chemical apparatus, consisting of two retorts connected by a tube, used to purify substances by distillation.

   “Ideal beauty is not the mind’s creation: it is real beauty, refined and purified in the mind’s alembic, from the alloy which always more or less accompanies it in our mixed and imperfect nature.”

   “Thus is Art, a nature passed through the alembic of man.”