Definition of "distillate" [dis•till•ate]

• A liquid condensed from vapor in distillation. (noun)
• A purified form; an essence: "Finally the President knows the most crucial things about every facet of reality, the pristine distillate of the world's critical information” ( Peregrine Worsthorne). (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Many chemical products start with petroleum feedstocks simply because a certain distillate is much closer to the end product than a lump of coal is."
• "The traditional Dutch production method is to distill a fermented mixture of malt, corn, and rye two or three times in pot stills at low proof: that is, the distillate contains a fair amount of congeners, and resembles a light whisky."
• "Whatever their reasons for emigrating to America, the English settlers generally might be regarded as a kind of distillate of people who somehow did not fit - or did not want to fit - in English society."