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Definition of Quintessence
1. Noun. The fifth and highest element after air and earth and fire and water; was believed to be the substance composing all heavenly bodies.
Language type: Archaicism, Archaism
Generic synonyms: Element
Derivative terms: Ethereal, Quintessential
2. Noun. The purest and most concentrated essence of something.
Derivative terms: Quintessential
3. Noun. The most typical example or representative of a type.
Definition of Quintessence
1. n. The fifth or last and highest essence or power in a natural body. See Ferment oils, under Ferment.
2. v. t. To distil or extract as a quintessence; to reduce to a quintessence.
Definition of Quintessence
1. Noun. A thing that is the most perfect example of its type; the most perfect embodiment of something. ¹
2. Noun. A pure substance. ¹
3. Noun. The essence in a thing that in its purest and most concentrated form. ¹
4. Noun. (alchemy) The fifth alchemical element, or essence, after earth, air, fire, and water ¹
¹ Source: wiktionary.com
Definition of Quintessence
1. [n -S]
Medical Definition of Quintessence
1. 1. The fifth or last and highest essence or power in a natural body. See Ferment oils, under Ferment. The ancient Greeks recognised four elements, fire, air, water, and earth. The Pythagoreans added a fifth and called it nether, the fifth essence, which they said flew upward at creation and out of it the stars were made. The alchemists sometimes considered alcohol, or the ferment oils, as the fifth essence. 2. Hence: An extract from anything, containing its rarest virtue, or most subtle and essential constituent in a small quantity; pure or concentrated essence. "Let there be light, said God; and forthwith light Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure, Sprung from the deep." (Milton) Origin: F, fr. L. Quinta essentia fifth essence. See Quint, and Essence. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998)
Lexicographical Neighbors of Quintessence
Literary usage of Quintessence
Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:
1. Annals of Medical History by Francis Randolph Packard (1920)
"This quintessence was supposed to be the ethereal substance of which the stars
... quintessence is mentioned at the very beginning of the first book, as, ..."
2. The Quarterly Review by William Gifford, George Walter Prothero, John Gibson Lockhart, John Murray, Whitwell Elwin, John Taylor Coleridge, Rowland Edmund Prothero Ernle, William Macpherson, William Smith (1910)
"The quintessence of Socialism. By Dr A. Schaffte. Translated from the eighth
German edition by Bernard Bosanquet, LL.D. London : Sonnenschein, 1889. 2. ..."
3. A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital by John Beauchamp Jones (1866)
"him, is the very quintessence of diplomacy! He can look at it, read it, handle
it, and return it to Lord John, and then diplomatically prove that this ..."
4. A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital by John Beauchamp Jones (1866)
"him, is the very quintessence of diplomacy! He can look at it, read it, handle
it, and return it to Lord John, and then diplomatically prove that this ..."
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