1. to purify a liquid by heating it until it becomes vapor and then cooling the vapor back into liquid
2. to extract the essential meaning or most important aspects of something
3. to make alcoholic liquor by distillation

Examples

• The chemist will distill the water to remove impurities.
• They distill whiskey in copper stills at the distillery.
• The teacher helped students distill the main ideas from the complex text.
• She distilled years of research into a brief presentation.
• The company distills essential oils from lavender plants.
• He tried to distill his philosophy into a few simple principles.
• The process distills seawater into fresh drinking water.