calcining

Verb

calcine (third-person singular simple present calcines, present participle calcining, simple past and past participle calcined)

1. (historical, transitive) To heat (a substance) to remove its impurities and refine it.
2. (physical, transitive) To heat (a substance) without melting in order to drive off water, etc., and to oxidize or reduce it; specifically, to decompose (carbonates) into oxides, and, especially, to heat (limestone) to form quicklime.
   • Fire […] burneth and calcineth ſtone, vvhereof is made that morter vvhich bindeth all vvork in maſonry.1601, C[aius] Plinius Secundus [i.e., Pliny the Elder], “[Book XXXVI.] The Wonderfull Operations of Fire: The Medicinable Properties that It Hath: And the Prodigious Significations Observed...

   Synonyms:

   calcinate, chark

3. (broadly, transitive) To heat (something) to dry and sterilize it.
4. (figuratively, transitive) To purify or refine (something).
5. (figuratively, transitive) To burn up (something) completely; to incinerate; hence, to destroy (something).
   • [A]s his death calcined thee to duſt, / His life may make thee gold, and much more juſt.[1633], George Herbert, “Easter”, in [Nicholas Ferrar], editor, The Temple. Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel; and are to be sold by...

   Synonyms:

   calcinize

6. (intransitive, physical) Of a substance: to undergo heating so as to oxidize it.
   • This Cryſtal is a pellucid fiſſile Stone, clear as Water or Cryſtal of the Rock, and without Colour; enduring a red Heat without loſing its tranſparency, and in a very ſtrong Heat calcining without Fuſion.a. 1728 (date written), Isaac Newton, “[The Third Book of Opticks.] [Qu[estion] 25. Are there not other original Properties of the Rays of Light, besides those already described?]”, in Opticks: Or, A...

See all 7 meanings of calcine