The process of removing phlegm or watery matter from a substance, especially in alchemy and early chemistry.
From de- + phlegm + -ation (forming nouns from verbs). Primarily used in medieval and early modern scientific texts.
Dephlegmation was one of the main goals of alchemists working with distilled spirits—they wanted to extract the pure 'essence' by removing the 'phlegm,' not realizing they were just removing water.
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.