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Definition of refine : 1. To affect nicety or subtilty in thought or language.
2. To become pure; to be cleared of feculent matter.
3. To improve in accuracy, delicacy, or excellence.
4. To purify from what is gross, coarse, vulgar, inelegant, low, and the like; to make elegant or exellent; to polish; as, to refine the manners, the language, the style, the taste, the intellect, or the moral feelings.
5. To reduce to a fine, unmixed, or pure state; to free from impurities; to free from dross or alloy; to separate from extraneous matter; to purify; to defecate; as, to refine gold or silver; to refine iron; to refine wine or sugar.

Synonyms:

cut down, lucubrate, pull down, weatherize, calibrate, soften, exposit, enlarge, cultivate, chastise, afflict, discipline, rectify, try, knock down, clean, boost, amend, flesh out, shine, pop, work out, dilate, strain, pour down, subdue, expand, meliorate, push down, consume, reform, round, punish, right, complicate, tweak, shoot down, belt down, smoothen, ameliorate, humble, treat, polish up, rarify, perfect, kill, round off, graduate, remedy, polish, pulp, optimization, brush up, down, drink down, chasten, land, rarefy, expound, revitalize, civilize, repair, help, hone, toss off, reclaim, lift, regenerate, sharpen, devour, perplex, tan, bolt down, go through, expatiate, fine-tune, castigate, improve on, remediate, smooth

better, renovate, embellish, garnish, enhance, enrich, upgrade, improve, further, progress, advance, correct, elaborate

factor, purify, elucidate, clarify, reduce, strip, simplify

filter, disinfect, purge, sanitize, sterilize, cleanse

Usage examples:

• He studied until he knew what it looked like, smelled like, tasted like, and how to refine it. - "Acres of Diamonds", Russell H. Conwell.
• The drawing had been done by a wandering duchess who had seen the girl sketching in the foothills when on a visit to that " Wild West" which has such power to refine and inspire minds not superior to Nature. - "Northern Lights", Gilbert Parker.
• But why refine upon these points at all? - "The Ethnology of the British Islands", Robert Gordon Latham.