empyreuma

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ἐμπύρευμα (empúreuma, “a live coal covered with ashes”). Compare French empyreume. See empyreal.

Noun

empyreuma (plural empyreumas or empyreumata)

  1. (obsolete, chemistry) The particular smell and taste arising from products of decomposition of animal or vegetable substances when burnt in sealed containers.
    • 1651, John French, Art of Distillation:
      If the Liquor retain a certain Empyreuma, or smatch of the fire, thou shalt help it by putting it into a glasse close stopt, and so exposing it to the heat of the sun, and now and then opening the glasse that the fiery impression may exhale, or else let the glasse stand in a cold moist place.

Derived terms

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “empyreuma”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

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