Refine

How to spell refine

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce refine

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does refine mean?

1. verbTo improve something by making small changes, or to free a substance from impurities.

Refine in a sentence

• The engineers worked all week to refine the production process.

• The factory uses heat and pressure to refine crude oil into petrol.

Where does refine come from?

Language of origin: French

Refine entered English in the late 1500s, built from the prefix re-, used here as an intensifier meaning 'thoroughly' or 'again', joined to the verb 'fine', which meant 'to make pure or clear'. That verb came from the adjective 'fine', borrowed through Old French 'fin' from the Latin 'finis', meaning 'end' or 'boundary', which developed the sense of something brought to its highest or finished quality. The word was probably modelled on the French 'raffiner', which carried the same idea of purifying a substance. Its earliest English uses were technical, describing the removal of impurities from metals, sugar, and oil, and the figurative sense of polishing one's manners or improving a method followed soon after. The spelling is straightforward once you see it as 're' plus the familiar word 'fine', so the only real trap is remembering the silent final 'e' that the long 'i' sound requires.

How the word is built

• re- (again, intensive)
• fine (to make pure, from fine: of high quality)