sublimating

Verb

sublimate (third-person singular simple present sublimates, present participle sublimating, simple past and past participle sublimated)

1. (transitive, generally) To change (a solid substance) into a gas without breaking down or passing through the liquid state by heating it gently.

   Synonyms:

   sublime

2. (transitive, chiefly passive voice) To change (a substance) from a gas into a solid through sublimation.

   Synonyms:

   sublime

3. (broadly, figuratively, transitive) To refine (something) until it disappears or loses all meaning.
4. (broadly, figuratively, transitive) To modify (the natural expression of a sexual or primitive instinct) in a socially acceptable manner; to divert the energy of (such an instinct) into some acceptable activity.
   • Foreigners extol the American "energy" […] Basically it is the energy of violence, of free-floating resentment and anxiety unleashed by chronic cultural dislocations which must be, for the most part, ferociously sublimated. This energy has mainly been sublimated into crude materialism and...1969, Susan Sontag, “What’s Happening in America”, in Styles of Radical Will, Kindle edition, Penguin Modern Classics, published 2009, →ISBN, page 194
5. (archaic, broadly, figuratively, transitive) To obtain (something) through, or as if through, sublimation.
6. (archaic, broadly, figuratively, transitive) To purify or refine (a substance).
   • The precepts of Christianity are […] so apt […] to cleanse and sublimate the more gross and corrupt.1667, attributed to Richard Allestree, The Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety. […], London: […] R. Norton for T. Garthwait, […], →OCLC

See all 13 meanings of sublimate