limbec

See alembic

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɪmbɪk/

limbec (third-person singular simple present limbecs, present participle limbecking, simple past and past participle limbecked)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To distill.
   • c. 1627, John Donne, A Nocturnal upon St. Lucie's Day, being the shortest day:

     I, by Love's limbec, am the grave / Of all that's nothing.

limbec (plural limbecs)

1. An alembic; a still.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     And the dull drops that from his purpled bill As from a limbec

   • c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     the warder of the brain / Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason / A limbec only.

• emblic