What does it mean when water or alcohol is distilled? Is there a stilled water?
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Distillation is a process for separating out liquids that have been mixed. Some liquids boil at higher temperatures than others. By controlling the temperature of a mixture, we can separate it by boiling off one or more of the components. These components can then be recondensed elsewhere back to liquid.
Essentially it’s a purification process.
Distillation is the purification of a liquid by boiling and condensing it and then separating the parts that come out. Different components in a liquid have different boiling and condensation points, so you can control the temperature and thus control what substances are removed.
So yes, there is such a thing as distilled water. Distilled water is just water that’s been boiled and then the vapor is collected in a separate container and cooled back into liquid water. Everything left in the original container was all the stuff (minerals, contaminants…etc) that was in the water, and then all that’s in the new container is pure water.
Alcohol can also be distilled to purify and concentrate the ethanol and remove other unwanted contaminants or byproducts of the fermentation process. You can repeat the distillation multiple times to achieve the desired purity and concentration.
Distilled water has all the minerals taken out. Usually by steaming. Labratory grade is usually triple steam distilled. When taking the minerals out the ph drops. Water wants minerals so drinking it is not a good idea. It will absorb minerals from your body. Alcohol distilling is separating the alcohol and water through evaporation.
Remember in the movies when they talk about moonshine “stills” – that really is exactly where the phrase came from.
distilling is just a series of “pots” where you heat or boil a liquid to remove impurities *(or remove water)
Imagine if you were lost at sea and needed clean water to drink – you could distill water just using trash bags and a heat source – *(heat up sea water and catch the steam, you would have water that your body could drink. It would probably taste like shit compared to the evian or aquafina we are used to – but it would work and you wouldn’t die of thirst)
Others have described what distillation is, but your question also asked about the word itself. The “dis” in distill is not an “opposite” prefix like dismount (the opposite of mount) or dislike (the opposite of like). Distill is not the opposite of “till” (or “still”).
Instead, the word comes from a di- or de- prefix in Latin or French, meaning “down” and an ancient word “still” coming from Latin “stillare” meaning to trickle in tiny droplets. Other examples of that prefix are “desire” which is not the opposite of “sire”, and “decant” which is not the opposite of “cant”. The change from e to i is just an annoying fact of language change.
So “distill” comes from the part of the process where the drops form and trickle down into a container. The word “still”, meaning the device for distilling, comes from “distill” and not the other way around.
The adjective “still” meaning “not moving” is actually a completely different word, with a completely different origin. It comes from Old German or Dutch words like “stilli” that just happen to sound similar.
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