refined

/ɹɪˈfaɪnd/

refined is the simple past and past participle of refine.

Adjective

refined (comparative more refined, superlative most refined)

(obsolete) Sagacious, sometimes (derogatory) oversubtle or feigning sagacity.
Subtle, scrupulous, carefully thought out.
- The argument, while not persuasive, is quite refined.
Developed, improved.
- The curriculum has been carefully refined to meet the needs of foreign students.
Elevated and polished.
- In the British Isles, Oxbridge is considered refined; Geordie somewhat less so.
Elegant, sometimes (derogatory) affected, prissy, or bloodless.
- Don Draper was a man of refined tastes.
- "Jesus Christ! Was my folks refined. My mam she wouldn't think-a lettin' us young'uns call a pee pot a pee pot. A chamber's what she called it... And by God! Us young'uns had ter call the pee pot a chamber or git our God damn necks wrang."1946, Elizabeth Metzger Howard, Before the Sun Goes Down, page 31
Synonyms:

dainty
Highly-processed and pure.
- Under current guidelines, refined sugar must be at least five times purer than its raw counterpart.
Free of dross or alloy.
- The Temple at Jerusalem preferred Tyrian shekels, since even with Ba'al's portrait they bore highly refined silver.
(obsolete) Morally pure.
Dealing in a refined product such as sugar or petroleum.

refine (third-person singular simple present refines, present participle refining, simple past and past participle refined)

(transitive) To purify; reduce to a fine, unmixed, or pure state; to free from impurities.
- to refine gold
(intransitive) To become pure; to be cleared of impure matter.
(transitive) To purify of coarseness, vulgarity, inelegance, etc.; to polish.
- to refine someone's manners
(ambitransitive) To improve in accuracy, delicacy, or excellence.
- My dear Harriet, you must not refine too much upon this charade.—You will betray your feelings improperly, if you are too conscious and too quick, and appear to affix more meaning, or even quite all the meaning which may be affixed to it.1815, Jane Austen, Emma, volume I, chapter 9
(transitive) To make nice or subtle.
- to refine thought

refined (plural refineds)

The refined form of a commodity, as opposed to its raw or generic form.
- We're still purchasing copper ore, but the market for refined is weaker.

What does refined mean?: Refined means sagacious, sometimes (derogatory) oversubtle or feigning sagacity.
What is refined the simple past and past participle of?: Refined is the simple past and past participle of refine.
What part of speech is refined?: Refined can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce refined?: Refined is pronounced /ɹɪˈfaɪnd/.

Adapted from Wiktionary: refined (page history and authors); refine (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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Cite this entry: “refined.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/refined. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.