Phrase guide

destructive distillation

noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

No pronunciation record was provided for this word.

1

noun

Meaning 1

The heating of a material, such as coal or wood, in an inert atmosphere, at a high temperature such as to cause decomposition; the principal products include oils and tars from which many useful organic compounds may be obtained; town gas and coke were obtained in this way.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: countable, physical, uncountable

Topics: chemistry, natural-sciences, organic-chemistry, physical-sciences

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

heating a solid substance in a closed container and collecting the volatile products

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: fractionation, fractional process

Narrower terms: carbonization, carbonisation

History

Etymology

No etymology was provided for this word.