Also 7 -at. [f. L. sublīmāt-, pa. ppl. stem of sublīmāre to SUBLIME.]
† 1. trans. To raise to high place, dignity or honor. = SUBLIME v. 7. Obs.
c. 1566. Merie Tales of Skelton, in S.’s Wks. (1843), I. p. lxii. He that doth humble hymselfe … shalbe exalted, extoulled,… or sublimated.
1631. Weever, Anc. Funeral Mon., 868. Felix was … sublimated with an Episcopall Mitre.
1637. Bastwick, Litany, I. 17. Sometime, forty at once or more, are mounted and sublimated into the high Commission Court.
1637. Earl Monm., trans. Malvezzi’s Romulus & Tarquin, 214. They … would sublimate themselves [orig. accrescere volunt] contrary to the will of fortune.
2. = SUBLIME v. 1. Now rare.
1591. Percivall, Sp. Dict., Sublimar, to sublimate.
1631. Brathwait, Whimzies, Metall-man, 62. Elevate that tripode; sublimate that pipkin; elixate your antimonie.
1651. Wittie, trans. Primrose’s Pop. Err., IV. iii. 221. Honey thrice sublimated.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey).
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, 365. Sublimate,… to raise volatile substances by heat, and again condense them in a solid form.
b. gen. To act upon (a substance) so as to produce a refined product. Often in fig. context.
1601. Dolman, La Primaud. Fr. Acad., III. xc. 401. A maruellous kinde of naturall chimistrie … so to sublimate that which of it selfe is poison.
1638. Jackson, Creed, IX. xxiv. 169. None … would accuse an Alchimist … for wasting copper, lead, or brasse, if hee could … sublimate them into pure gold.
1660. A. Brett, Threnodia, 12. Tis chymick heat in’s bloud doth swim, T’wil sublimate terrestr’al him And so make of a Duke a Cherubim.
1711. Shaftesb., Charac. (1737), I. 134. The original plain principles of humanity … have, by a sort of spiritual chymists, been so sublimated, as to become the highest corrosives.
1747. Hervey, Medit., II. 30. December’s cold collects the gross Materials, which are sublimated by the refining Warmth of May.
1750. G. Hughes, Barbados, 32. The heat of the Sun … is so intense … that it sublimates their juices, salts, and spirits to a far greater degree of perfection.
1779. Johnson, L. P., Milton (1868), 71. The heat of Milton’s mind may be said to sublimate his learning.
† 3. To extract by or as by sublimation; = SUBLIME v. 2. Chiefly fig. Obs.
1614. T. Adams, Physic Heay., Wks. (1629), 290. You that haue put so faire for the Philosophers stone, that you haue endeuoured to sublimate it out of poore mens bones, ground to powder by your oppressions.
1626. J. Yates, Ibis ad Cæsarem, II. 33. Words ænigmaticall, sublimated in the furnace of his owne braine.
1644. Milton, Areop., 9. It will be a harder alchymy then Lullius ever knew, to sublimat any good use out of such an invention.
b. pass. and intr. To be produced as the result of sublimation.
1682. J. Collins, Salt & Fish., 127. This Salt was formerly found sublimated upon the superficies of the burnt Sands of that Country.
1799. G. Smith, Laboratory, I. 327. The phosphorus, which in the receiver is sublimated of a yellowish colour.
1800. trans. Lagrange’s Chem., I. 429. Towards the end of the operation, a little sulphur is sublimated.
1866. Lawrence, trans. Cotta’s Rocks Classified, 74. Sulphur … sublimates in matrass.
1872. J. Yeats, Techn. Hist. Comm., 321. Reducing the ore to powder, and afterwards by roasting it till the sulphur was sublimated.
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., II. 884. The chief part of this [morphia] literally burned and not sublimated at all.
4. To exalt or elevate to a high or higher state; = SUBLIME v. 4 c.
1599. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Rev. (1616), I. iii. Knowing my selfe an essence so sublimated, and refin’d by trauell.
1600. W. Watson, Decacordon (1602), 97. A man in whose very countenance was pourtraid out a map of politicall gouernment…, sublimated with a reuerend maiestie in his lookes.
1614. Jackson, Creed, III. IV. v. § 8. This absolute submission of their consciences … sublimates them from refined Heathenisme or Gentilisme to diabolisme.
1673. Lady’s Calling, I. 32. This is it which sublimates and spiritualizes humanity.
1682. Lond. Gaz., No. 1711/4. Sedition and Rebellion, sublimated to the heighth, and as the very Extract of Disorder and Anarchy.
1781. Hayley, Triumphs Temper, V. 287.
| Here grief and joy so suddenly unite, | |
| That anguish serves to sublimate delight. |
1869. Lecky, Europ. Mor., II. 295. Moral ideas in a thousand forms have been sublimated, enlarged and changed.
1867. Aug. J. E. Wilson, Vashti, x. Forced to lose faith in her … capacity to sublimate her erring nature.
b. ironical.
1822. in W. Cobbett, Rur. Rides, I. 89. The unnatural working of the paper-system has sublimated him out of his senses.
5. To transmute into something higher, nobler, more sublime or refined; = SUBLIME v. 5.
1624. [Scott], Vox Regis, To Rdr. p. iv. It expresseth strength to haue words sublimated into works.
1672. Sterry, Serm. (1710), II. 275. Holiness exalts and sublimates a Man into Spirit.
1676. Hale, Contempl., II. 63. The Heart becomes … the very sink … of all the Impure desires of the Flesh, where they are … sublimated into Impurities, more exquisite [etc.].
a. 1708. Beveridge, Priv. Th., I. (1730), 159. By sublimating good Thoughts into good Affections.
1858. Froude, Hist. Eng., IV. xviii. 59. Their understandings were too direct to sublimate absurdities into mysteries.
1884. W. S. Lilly, in Contemp. Rev., Feb., 262. Gradually sublimating into an ideal sentiment what in the ancient world had been little more than an animal appetite.
b. intr. for pass. SUBLIME v. 5 b.
1852. Brinley, Ess. (1858), 266. If Miss Rebecca Sharpe had really been … a matchless beauty,… she might have sublimated into a Beatrix Esmond.
6. To refine away into something unreal or nonexistent; to reduce to unreality.
1836–7. Sir W. Hamilton, Metaph., xxiii. (1859), II. 79. The materialist may now derive the subject from the object, the idealist derive the object from the subject, the absolutist sublimate both into indifference.
1867. Morn. Star, 29 Jan. We are too much given to sublimate official responsibility until it becomes impalpable to ordinary senses.
1869. Lecky, Europ. Mor., I. 342. While he … sublimated the popular worship into a harmless symbolism.
1910. W. S. Palmer, Diary Modernist, 264. A spiritual body is for him sublimated out of reality.
Hence Sublimating vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1611. Cotgr., Sublimation, a sublimating, raising, or lifting vp.
1612. W. Parkes, Curtaine-Dr., 41. O this body of ours … what time doe wee bestow in the garnishment of the same (and especially our woemen) … in Pomatums for their skinnes, in Fucusses for their faces, by sublimatinge, and mercury.
1840. Poe, Balloon Hoax, Wks. 1865, I. 97. I can conceive nothing more sublimating than the strange peril and novelty of an adventure such as this.
