A Chymical Dictionary

Cyphantum

Operations instruments and practitioners · A Chymical Dictionary

At a Glance

The word. A name that can denote equipment or the art performed with it.

In the book. Cucurbita names a vessel through its gourd-like shape, Diota through circulation, and Cohobatio through repeated treatment of liquid and body.

A place to read. The historical definition below, 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 18; facsimile PDF page 346.

Historical Definition

Cyphantum is a distilling vessel, or the art of distillation itself.

Meaning

The two senses cross the distinction between an object and an activity. Cyphantum can name a vessel used in distillation or the art itself. The surrounding sentence must decide whether an author is referring to equipment or to a practice.

This explicit alternative is worth preserving in translation. A mechanical replacement by “still” everywhere could make an author’s discussion of an art sound like a description of an object. Conversely, an abstract translation would obscure references to the vessel.

Use in the Book

Cucurbita names a vessel through its gourd-like shape, Diota through circulation, and Cohobatio through repeated treatment of liquid and body. Together they provide several scales of description within a work: an object, a kind of vessel and an operation. Cyphantum is distinctive because its definition expressly permits both equipment and art.

Places to Read

Cohobatio. Repeated distillation involving the return of the drawn liquid to its source body.

Cucurbita. A gourd-shaped vessel.

Diota. A vessel identified by circulation.

In This Edition

The source does not specify a design. The edition therefore does not supply a diagram or a modern apparatus equivalent merely from this definition.

Historical source: 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 18; facsimile PDF page 346 — Facsimile

Sources. A Chymicall Dictionary 1650, s.v. Cyphantum

See also. Cohobatio; Cucurbita; Diota