subtilize

And if reputation and reward shall attend these conquests, which depend mostly on the fineness and niceties of words, it is no wonder if the wit of man so employed, should perplex, involve, and subtilize the signification of sounds, so as never to want something to say in opposing or defending any question; the victory being adjudged not to him who had truth on his side, but the last word in the dispute.

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 2007

And if reputation and reward shall attend these conquests, which depend mostly on the fineness and niceties of words, it is no wonder if the wit of man so employed, should perplex, involve, and subtilize the signification of sounds, so as never to want something to say in opposing or defending any question; the victory being adjudged not to him who had truth on his side, but the last word in the dispute.

God, Aids & Circumcision Hill, George 2005

Remember they are trying to subtilize, trying to eliminate the gross, and are trying to make everything in which the Light can function.

The Artist and His Audience Updike, John 1985

Humboldt considers the Mexican Indian as destitute of all imagination, though when to a certain degree educated, he attributes to him facility in learning, a clearness of understanding, a natural turn for reasoning, and a particular aptitude to subtilize and seize trifling distinctions.

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 13, No. 372, May 30, 1829 Various

Avenarius, Willy, Mach, etc. subtilize this process so far as to reduce all experience to internal

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 5: Diocese-Fathers of Mercy 1840-1916 1913

But Philosophy is more than the attempt to refine and subtilize our ordinary words so as to fit them for the higher service of interpretative thought, more even than the endeavour to improve the stock of ideas no matter how come by, by which we interpret to ourselves whatever it imports us to understand.

Progress and History Francis Sydney Marvin 1903

Almost suffocating under the oppression of repressed feelings, using art only to repeat and rehearse for himself his own internal tragedy, after having wearied emotion, he began to subtilize it.

Life of Chopin Liszt, Franz, 1811-1886 1877

To play with important truths, to disturb the repose of established tenets, to subtilize objections, and elude proof, is too often the sport of youthful vanity, of which maturer experience commonly repents.

Christian Morals 1605-1682 1863

Women are peculiarly fitted to further such a combination — first, from their greater tendency to mingle affection and imagination with passion, and thus subtilize it into sentiment; and next, from that dread of what overtaxes their intellectual energies, either by difficulty, or monotony, which gives them an instinctive fondness for lightness of treatment and airiness of expression, thus making them cut short all prolixity and reject all heaviness.

The Essays of "George Eliot" Complete George Eliot 1849

Almost suffocating under the oppression of repressed feelings, using art only to repeat and rehearse for himself his own internal tragedy, after having wearied emotion, he began to subtilize it.

Life of Chopin Franz Liszt 1848