How to use refine in a sentence
40 example sentences · verb
Refine means to purify; reduce to a fine, unmixed, or pure state; to free from impurities. Example: “Keep refining your estimate, and you will gradually close in on the right answer.”
Examples of refine by meaning
verbTo purify; reduce to a fine, unmixed, or pure state; to free from impurities.
- to refine gold
- to refine iron
- to refine wine
verbTo purify of coarseness, vulgarity, inelegance, etc.; to polish.
- to refine someone's manners
- to refine a language
- a refined style
verbTo improve in accuracy, delicacy, or excellence.
- Adjust the volume, tweak the contours, refine the timing and, if need be, fiddle with the setting, and the hoariest yuck-fest can seem as dewy as a morning in May.2007 August 2, Ben Brantley, “Titters, Snickers and Guffaws, With a British Accent”, in New York Times
- HS2 Ltd has continued to refine the designs, so that seven fewer ancient woodlands will be affected.2023 August 23, Chris Howe, “Green screen: HS2's route through the shires”, in RAIL, number 990, page 34
verbTo make nice or subtle.
- to refine thought
- to refine someone's language
More sentences with refine
- Keep refining your estimate, and you will gradually close in on the right answer.From the entry close in
- Carbonatation is used in refining sugar from sugar beet.From the entry carbonatation
- The purpose of physical alchemy—as opposed to its various spiritual pursuits—was to treat the supposed leprosity of base metals such as lead, refining and purifying them into gold.From the entry alchemy
- The purpose of physical alchemy—as opposed to its various spiritual pursuits—was to treat the leprosity of base metals such as lead, refining and purifying them into gold.From the entry leprosity
- But what they have done since is ruthlessly improve and refine it, using Kaizen principles.2023 June 28, Sir Michael Holden, “Comment: 'There will be more Nunehams': We need some serious Kaizen... and we need it now”, in RAIL…. From the entry kaizen
- But I've also been able to write hella songs and refine my artistic vision for my 'debut.'2021 February 26, Joshen Mantai, quoting Gupsy, “Flaunt Premiere | Guspy "STEEZ LUÍZ"”, in Flaunt, archived from the original on 31 Dec 2022. From the entry down horrendous
- Drawovers, such as the one shown here, were instrumental in refining those details.2016, Sanjay Patel, The Art of Sanjay's Super Team, page 48. From the entry drawover
- Other liquids produced in the refining process, too unstable or smoky for lamplight, were burned or dumped.2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847. From the entry too
- Biodiesel is an increasingly popular alternative fuel because it's made by refining oil.2006 November 21, Jessica Seid Dickler, “Make your own gas”, in CNN Money, archived from the original on 12 Feb 2025. From the entry biodiesel
- Once a preliminary application design is complete, a wizard-of-oz study can help test and refine the interface.2006, E. K. Brown, Anne Anderson, Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, volume 11, page 769. From the entry Wizard of Oz
- Refining his focus from Third World countries in general to Cyprus in particular has tightened Hulusi’s practice.2006, Emily Speers Mears, “Mustafa Hulusi”, in Bidoun: A Quarterly Forum for Middle Eastern Talent, number 7 (Tourism), archived from the…. From the entry dilettanteishly
- Fei therefore proposes refining this correlation of economic development and geographic identity.1992, Emily Honig, “In Search of Subei”, in Creating Chinese Ethnicity: Subei People in Shanghai, 1850-1980, Yale University Press, →ISBN…. From the entry Hai'an
- He states and restates, formulates and reformulates, refines and rerefines.2017, Gary Best, Harold Laski and American Liberalism, →ISBN, page 128. From the entry reformulate
- We refine and extend quantitative bounds, on the fraction of nonnegative polynomials that are sums of squares, to the multihomogenous case.2016, Alperen Ergur, “Multihomogenous Nonnegative Polynomials and Sums of Squares”, in arXiv. From the entry multihomogenous
- To refine the microstructure and improve strength and formability, annular OSWC was carried out for the thermomechanically processed pipe.2015 July 23, “Heat Transfer Modeling of an Annular On-Line Spray Water Cooling Process for Electric-Resistance-Welded Steel Pipe”, in…. From the entry thermomechanically
- Hard work doesn't kill; it only refines.2011, Daniel Ibrahim, “Worktitudes”, in Opulently Organized Opportunity: From the Soul of Heaven, Pittsburgh, Pa.: Dorrance Publishing…. From the entry worky
- Refine the controller so that the robot does not oscillate about the center of the hallway (do not underdamp the controller).2010, Gregory Dudek, Michael Jenkin, Computational Principles of Mobile Robotics, →ISBN. From the entry underdamp
- The downstream segment (also known as refining and marketing, or R&M) focuses on the final stage of the integrated process.2009, Andrew Teufel, Aaron Azelton, Fisher Investments on Energy, page 3. From the entry downstream
- Proponents of buycotting see these premiums as pure political expression: citizens’ parting with money to refine the world.2009 October 11, Anand Giridharadas, “Boycotts Minus the Pain”, in New York Times. From the entry buycott
- While quarian ships include light manufacturing and assembly plants, they lack heavy industries such as refining and shipbuilding.2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Quarians: Economy Codex entry. From the entry hand-to-mouth
- Around the age of four months, the cortex begins to refine the connections needed for depth perception and binocular vision.2001 June 24, J. Madeleine Nash, “Fertile Minds”, in Time. From the entry binocular vision
- Today’s software development cycle does not allow time to optimize and refine products, and that leads to bloatware.1996 February 12, Ed Foster, “Passing the bloatware buck: Programmers finger deadlines, driven bosses”, in InfoWorld, page 58. From the entry bloatware
- In this process we are trying to refine and concentrate the computing power inherent in the laws of physics.1992, Norman Margolus, “Fundamental Physical Constraints on the Computational Process”, in BC Crandall, James Lewis, editors…. From the entry computronium
- Technology refines slaughter into benign surgery: Kipling calls the abattoir an “operating-room.” Nature has been improvingly obliterated by the machine.1980, Peter Conrad, chapter 4, in Imagining America, New York: Oxford University Press, page 104. From the entry improvingly
- And she’s got a great scene partner in Stevens, refining his star power into a just slightly, almost imperceptibly mechanical approximation of Don Juan smolder.2021 September 16, A. A. Dowd, “Dan Stevens as a dashing robot lover? That computes”, in AV Club. From the entry smolder
- An additional approach to single data point serodiagnostics are modelling based procedures that fit distribution mixtures and can refine the choice of diagnostic cut-offs.2016 February 6, “The Use of Innovative Two-Component Cluster Analysis and Serodiagnostic Cut-Off Methods to Estimate Prevalence of…. From the entry serodiagnostics
- Cryo processing refines and stabilizes the crystal lattice structure and distributes carbon particles throughout the material resulting in a stronger and hence more durable material.2013, Susheel Kalia, Shao-Yun Fu, “Cryogenic processing: State of the art, advantages and applications”, in Polymers at Cryogenic…. From the entry cryo processing
- In terms of my own writing, the idea of Vance creating or refining “scientifantasy,” or far-future SF that read like fantasy, really resonated.2013 September [2009], Jeff VanderMeer, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of…. From the entry scientifantasy
- Yet, without a clear subgrouping, it is difficult to properly weight and evaluate data from the daughter languages in order to refine PST reconstructions.2008, Zev Handel, “What is Sino-Tibetan? Snapshot of a Field and a Language Family in Flux”, in Language and Linguistics Compass, volume…. From the entry catch-22
- In the second step of the salt refining process the heated brine then goes into a graveler filled with cobblestones to remove the impurities.2006, We Family Publications and Consulting, Thou Shalt Not Abuse Thy Spouse, page 59. From the entry graveler
Meaning of refine
- verb To purify; reduce to a fine, unmixed, or pure state; to free from impurities.
- verb To become pure; to be cleared of impure matter.
- verb To purify of coarseness, vulgarity, inelegance, etc.; to polish.
Questions about refine in a sentence
- How do you use refine in a sentence?
- Refine is used as a verb. For example: “Keep refining your estimate, and you will gradually close in on the right answer.”
- What is a short sentence with refine?
- “a refined style”
- What does refine mean?
- Refine means to purify; reduce to a fine, unmixed, or pure state; to free from impurities.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: refine (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “How to use refine in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/refine. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
