Refinement

How to spell refinement

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce refinement

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does refinement mean?

1. nounA small improvement or adjustment that makes something more effective, precise, or polished.
2. nounThe process of removing impurities from a raw substance such as metal, oil, or sugar.
3. nounElegance and good taste in manners, behaviour, or style.

Refinement in a sentence

• Each refinement to the proposal made it clearer for the board.

• The refinement of crude oil produces petrol and diesel.

• The hotel was decorated with quiet refinement and understated luxury.

• The engineers introduced one final refinement before the product launch.

• Sugar undergoes several stages of refinement before it reaches the shelves.

• She spoke with a refinement that put every guest at ease.

Where does refinement come from?

Language of origin: French

This word grew out of the verb 'refine', which English assembled in the late 1500s by adding the intensifying prefix 're-' to 'fine', the latter coming through Old French from the Latin word finis, meaning 'end', 'limit', or 'boundary'. From finis came the sense of bringing something to its finished, pure, or perfected state, so to 'refine' literally meant to make thoroughly pure. The noun 'refinement' was then formed with the French-derived suffix '-ment', which turns a verb into a name for its process or result. Early uses described the purifying of metals and sugar, but by the 1600s the word had been lifted into the social world to mean polished manners and cultivated taste. The shared finis root still echoes in everyday relatives such as 'finish', 'final', and 'define', and remembering 'fine' sitting cleanly in the middle is a useful guard against misspelling it.

How the word is built

• re- (again, thoroughly)
• fine (to purify, make clear, from Latin finis: end, limit)
• -ment (noun suffix marking the result or process)