From the book
A Chymical Dictionary
Gerhard Dorn and John French · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordA name that can denote equipment or the art performed with it.
- In the bookCucurbita names a vessel through its gourd-like shape, Diota through circulation, and Cohobatio through repeated treatment of liquid and body.
- A place to readThe 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
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.
Source note
Historical source. 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 18; facsimile PDF page 346 — Facsimile