[ad. L. sublīmātum, neut. pa. pple. (used subst. in med.L.) of sublīmāre to SUBLIME.]
1. A solid product of sublimation, esp. in the form of a compact crystalline cake.
a. 1626. Bacon, Art. Enq. Metals (1669), 225. To enquire … what Metals endure Subliming; and what Body the Sublimate makes.
1694. Salmon, Bate’s Dispens. (1713), 359/2. In the other Part of the Neck you will have a kind of grey Sublimate.
1726. Dict. Rust. (ed. 3), Sublimate of Arsenick, is Arsenick corrected or freed from its more malignant Sulphurs, and rais’d to the top of the Matrass by the force of Fire.
1778. Pryce, Min. Cornub., 34. The sublimate of our white Mundick … may produce … some of the best white Arsenick.
1819. trans. Berzelius, in Ann. Philos., XIII. 405. The sublimate was pure selenic acid.
1820. Faraday, Exp. Res., No. 13. 35. A sublimate of crystals filled the retort.
1869. Roscoe, Elem. Chem., 246. Chromic chloride … is obtained as a sublimate, in beautiful violet crystals.
1894. Times, 15 Aug., 12/2. The walls are nearly all covered by sublimates or dust that has adhered and crusted them over.
b. fig. A refined or concentrated product.
1683. Norris, Idea Happin. (1684), 27. Some have … grown mad with the Sublimate of Pleasure.
1872. Liddon, Elem. Relig., iii. 92. Man’s soul is not a third nature, poised between his spirit and his body; nor yet is it a sublimate of his bodily organization.
2. ‘Mercury sublimate’; mercuric chloride (bichloride or perchloride of mercury), a white crystalline powder, which acts as a violent poison.
In early times also used for arsenic (cf. RATSBANE 1).
1543. trans. Vigo’s Chirurg., Interpr. (1550), AA aj b. Sublimate. Argentum sublimatum is made of Chalcantum, quyckesyluer, vyneger, and sal armoniake.
1594. Plat, Jewell-ho., I. 10. Suger is a salt, Sublimate is a salt, Saltpeter is a salt.
1605. Timme, Quersit., I. vii. 26. White sublimate and arsnic … foster and hide a most burning and deadly fire.
1609. B. Jonson, Silent Wom., II. ii. Take a little sublimate and goe out of the world, like a rat.
a. 1661. Holyday, Juvenal (1673), 122. Sublimate makes black the teeth; Cerusse makes gray the hair.
1789. W. Buchan, Dom. Med. (1790), 513. To those whose stomach cannot bear the solution, the sublimate may be given in form of pill.
1842. Borrow, Bible in Spain, xvi. I have more than once escaped … having the wine I drank spiced with sublimate.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VIII. 605. A tar bath, with 15 gr. of sublimate added.
fig. 1633. G. Herbert, Temple, Ch. Milit., 132. Nay he became a poet, and would serve His pills of sublimate in that conserve.
1896. trans. Huysmans’ En Route, iii. 37. To cleanse it with the disinfectant of prayer and the sublimate of Sacraments.
b. Now usually corrosive sublimate, formerly † sublimate corrosive.
1685. Boyle, Salubr. Air, 64. Though Corrosive Sublimate be so mischievous a Mineral Composition, that a few grains may kill a man.
1903. Phil. Trans., XXIII. 1325. Sublimate Corrosive.
1842. Macaulay, Ess., Fredk. Gt. (1851), II. 690. Pills of corrosive sublimate.
1874. Garrod & Baxter, Mat. Med., 103. Calomel is apt to contain a trace of corrosive sublimate.
c. Sweet sublimate, blue sublimate (see quots.).
1725. Bradley’s Family Dict., s.v., Sweet Sublimate is a Corrosive Sublimate, whose Points have been qualify’d by some Preparation.
1728. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., Sweet Sublimate, is the same with Corrosive, only temper’d and sweeten’d by the Addition of Mercurius Dulcis. Ibid. (1753), Suppl. s.v., Blue Sublimate, a preparation of mercury with some other ingredients, yielding a fine blue for painting.
d. attrib.: = containing or impregnated with corrosive sublimate, as sublimate bath, gauze, lotion, solution, water.
1753. J. Bartlet, Gentl. Farriery, xxv. 226. Touch with a caustic, or wash with the sublimate water.
1843. R. J. Graves, Syst. Clin. Med., xxvii. 339. During the year 1827 the venereal patients took … 302 Sublimate baths. Ibid. Corrosive sublimate baths.
1895. Arnold & Sons’ Catal. Surg. Instrum., 726. Sublimate Gauze.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VIII. 870. The parts were then disinfected with sublimate lotion.
3. Mineral. The deposit formed on charcoal or in a glass tube, when certain minerals are heated and subjected to the blowpipe.
1842. Parnell, Chem. Anal. (1845), 262. Metals. Produce a sublimate on charcoal—antimony; arsenic [etc.]…. Give no sublimate on charcoal—mercury; osmium.
