Word Meanings - QUINTESSENCE - Book Publishers vocabulary database

1. The fifth or last and highest essence or power in a natural body. See Ferment oils, under Ferment. Note: The ancient Greeks recognized four elements, fire, air, water, and earth. The Pythagoreans added a fifth and called it nether, the fifth

Additional info about word: QUINTESSENCE

1. The fifth or last and highest essence or power in a natural body. See Ferment oils, under Ferment. Note: The ancient Greeks recognized 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.

Related words: (words related to QUINTESSENCE)

• UNDERDOER
  One who underdoes; a shirk.
• UNDERBRED
  Not thoroughly bred; ill-bred; as, an underbred fellow. Goldsmith.
• WATER-BEARER
  The constellation Aquarius.
• CALLOSUM
  The great band commissural fibers which unites the two cerebral hemispheres. See corpus callosum, under Carpus.
• UNDERSECRETARY
  A secretary who is subordinate to the chief secretary; an assistant secretary; as, an undersecretary of the Treasury.
• CALLOW
  1. Destitute of feathers; naked; unfledged. An in the leafy summit, spied a nest, Which, o'er the callow young, a sparrow pressed. Dryden. 2. Immature; boyish; "green"; as, a callow youth. I perceive by this, thou art but a callow maid. Old Play .
• UNDERPLOT
  1. A series of events in a play, proceeding collaterally with the main story, and subservient to it. Dryden. 2. A clandestine scheme; a trick. Addison.
• CALLE
  A kind of head covering; a caul. Chaucer.
• UNDERNICENESS
  A want of niceness; indelicacy; impropriety.
• UNDERSOIL
  The soil beneath the surface; understratum; subsoil.
• WATERWORT
  Any plant of the natural order Elatineæ, consisting of two genera , mostly small annual herbs growing in the edges of ponds. Some have a peppery or acrid taste.
• UNDERDOLVEN
  p. p. of Underdelve.
• ADDUCT
  To draw towards a common center or a middle line. Huxley.
• ADDLE-BRAIN; ADDLE-HEAD; ADDLE-PATE
  A foolish or dull-witted fellow.
• WATER SHREW
  Any one of several species of shrews having fringed feet and capable of swimming actively. The two common European species are the best known. The most common American water shrew, or marsh shrew , is rarely seen, owing to its nocturnal habits.
• EARTHLY-MINDED
  Having a mind devoted to earthly things; worldly-minded; -- opposed to spiritual-minded. -- Earth"ly-mind`ed*ness, n.
• WATER-TIGHT
  So tight as to retain, or not to admit, water; not leaky.
• UNDERNIME
  1. To receive; to perceive. He the savor undernom Which that the roses and the lilies cast. Chaucer. 2. To reprove; to reprehend. Piers Plowman.
• UNDERPROP
  To prop from beneath; to put a prop under; to support; to uphold. Underprop the head that bears the crown. Fenton.
• EARTH FLAX
  A variety of asbestus. See Amianthus.
• HADDOCK
  A marine food fish , allied to the cod, inhabiting the northern coasts of Europe and America. It has a dark lateral line and a black spot on each side of the body, just back of the gills. Galled also haddie, and dickie. Norway haddock, a marine
• SUPERNATURALNESS
  The quality or state of being supernatural.
• GYMNASTICALLY
  In a gymnastic manner.
• SADDER
  See SADDA
• HYPERCRITICALLY
  In a hypercritical manner.
• SCALLION
  A kind of small onion , native of Palestine; the eschalot, or shallot. 2. Any onion which does not "bottom out," but remains with a thick stem like a leek. Amer. Cyc.
• SADDUCEEISM; SADDUCISM
  The tenets of the Sadducees.
• UNEMPIRICALLY
  Not empirically; without experiment or experience.