refineryn.
/rᵻˈfʌɪn(ə)ri/, U.S. /rəˈfaɪn(ə)ri/, /riˈfaɪn(ə)ri/ 1.
a. A place, building, or industrial installation where sugar, oil, metal, etc., is refined. Frequently with modifying word specifying the thing refined.oil refinery, sugar refinery, etc.: see the first element.
ΘΚΠ
society > occupation and work > workplace > place where specific jobs are done > [noun] > others
cutting room1700
pearl fishery1702
refinery1716
gin house1796
dressing shed1802
ginning house1819
boring-mill1833
sorting office1851
gut-scrapery1854
conditioning house1858
packery1861
washery1875
try-house1891
wet room1901
pump-out1935
1716 J. Chamberlayne Magnæ Britanniæ Notitia (ed. 24) ii. 520 Two Persons allowed for Collecting at Refineries.
1728 E. Chambers Cycl. at Sugar In a Refinery are usually two Coppers, the one serving to clarify, the other to boil the clarify'd Liquor.
1758 A. Reid tr. P. J. Macquer Elements Theory & Pract. Chym. I. 389 The large refineries of Gold and Silver by the means of Lead furnish a great quantity of this material.
1804 Ann. Rev. & Hist. Lit. 1803 2 327 American and other settlers would have had..their refineries in every island.
1841 W. Spalding Italy & Ital. Islands II. 165 The capital had silk-works of all kinds,..to these it added soap-works, refineries, chemical-works, lace-works.
1946 Fortune Aug. 95/1 Petroleum refineries started to do heady things with continuous-flow processes.
1954 Thorpe's Dict. Appl. Chem. (ed. 4) XI. 187/1 Refined sugar presupposes treatment with bone charcoal in refineries as distinct from factories dealing with sugar beet or sugar cane.
1970 W. G. Roberts Quest for Oil ix. 93 The newest refineries use desulphurisation processes of this kind to treat a wide cut from the light end of the crude oil right up to kerosine or gas oil.
2007 New Scientist 7 July 30/3 A corn-based ethanol refinery [which]..produces more than 20 products from the various by-products..associated with ethanol production.
b. Metallurgy. A furnace for the refining of metal; spec. one for the conversion of cast into malleable iron. Now chiefly historical.
ΘΚΠ
society > occupation and work > equipment > furnace or kiln > furnace > [noun] > furnaces for melting or refining metals > furnaces for treating iron > puddling furnaces
finery1539
finery hearth1693
refinery1750
finery furnace1786
puddling furnace1797
forge-fire1855
boiling-furnace1875
1750 W. Douglass Summary State Brit. Settlements N.-Amer. II. ix. 69 A Kiln for Charcoal to Furnaces, Bloomeries and Refineries of Iron, is generally of 20 Cord Wood.
1798 Mem. Literary & Philos. Soc. Manch. 5 114 The pigs of cast iron are put into the refinery,..where they remain until they have acquired a consistency resembling paste.
1825 ‘J. Nicholson’ Operative Mechanic 334 The method of releasing the pig-iron of its carbon, or of converting it into what is called wrought or malleable iron is, by placing it in an open furnace, termed a refinery.
1839 A. Ure Dict. Arts 712 D is the refinery hearth.
1859 Jrnl. Soc. Arts 29 Apr. 419/2 The extraction of the silver contained in the rich lead is conducted in a cupel forming the bottom of a reverberatory furnace called a refinery.
1884 C. G. W. Lock Workshop Receipts 3rd Ser. 250/2 When grey pig-iron is used for making malleable iron, it must first be converted into white iron by the ‘whitening’ process in a ‘refinery’.
1922 T. M. Lowry Inorg. Chem. v. 60 The blue-black scale from the refinery was used by Priestley under the name of finery cinder.
1992 Technol. & Culture 33 772 Kelly had replaced the refinery hearth used in making wrought iron by an enclosed vessel.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > attention and judgement > good taste > refinement > [noun]
policya1522
neatness1555
finesse1564
politure1593
polishedness1594
polishment1594
polish1597
polishure1611
refinedness1612
refinement1704
refinery1746
sophistication1915
the mind > mental capacity > understanding > reason, faculty of reasoning > misleading argument, sophistry > excessive subtlety, hair-splitting > [noun]
subtilitya1425
subtilty1569
niceness1580
ob1588
curiosity1605
ergotism1656
refinery1746
over-subtlety1833
ergoism1864
subtileness1867
pilpul1894
the mind > mental capacity > understanding > reason, faculty of reasoning > misleading argument, sophistry > excessive subtlety, hair-splitting > [noun] > instance of
curiosityc1380
syllogism1387
webc1400
cobweb1579
refinement1692
refinery1746
pilpul1966
1746 Fool (1748) I. 272 Painted it over with silly Glosses and Refinery.
1746 Fool (1748) I. 291 That play in Circumlocutions and Refineries.
1794 C. F. Triebner Key to French Revol. 110 The Christian cause, which the one [party] has deformed, by superstition, and priestcraft, and the other, by too much refinery.
1895 T. Hardy Far from Madding Crowd (rev. ed.) xxxiii. 258 I knowed the boy's grandfather—a truly nervous and modest man, even to genteel refinery [1874 refinement].
Compounds
General attributive, as refinery furnace, refinery plant, refinery worker, etc.
ΚΠ
1839 A. Ure Dict. Arts 712 One of the numerous refinery furnaces.
1888 Amer. Almanac 275 Occupations of the People of the United States... Oil, mill and refinery operatives.
1922 T. M. Lowry Inorg. Chem. xliii. 829 Slags obtained in the later stages of purification, namely roaster slag..and refinery slag.
1939 Thorpe's Dict. Appl. Chem. (ed. 4) III. 348/2 The largest refinery plant in this country is at Prescot, where copper is refined..from blister copper.
1959 Listener 2 Apr. 582/1 Refinery gases, oil, and now refrigerated methane.
1992 Harper's Mag. Apr. 68/3 Union refinery workers saw their wages rise from $6 an hour in 1974 to $17.40 today.
2006 New Yorker 12 June 56/2 In many areas the refinery business is more like an oligopoly than like a competitive market.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2009; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1716