BOIL DOWN • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Boil down

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/bɔɪl daʊn/ Listen

verb

Boil v. t.

To heat to the boiling point, or so as to cause ebullition; as, to boil water.

To form, or separate, by boiling or evaporation; as, to boil sugar or salt.

To subject to the action of heat in a boiling liquid so as to produce some specific effect, as cooking, cleansing, etc.; as, to boil meat; to boil clothes. "The stomach cook is for the hall, And boileth meate for them all."

To steep or soak in warm water. (Obs.) "To try whether seeds be old or new, the sense can not inform; but if you boil them in water, the new seeds will sprout sooner."

To boil down, to reduce in bulk by boiling; as, to boil down sap or sirup.

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Etymology of 'Boil down'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Boil down" Quotes from Famous Books

... the first part of Chapter VI., Fleeming and his friends, his influence on me, his views on religion and literature, his part at the Savile; it should boil down to about ten pages, and I really do think it admirably good. It has so much evoked Fleeming for myself that I found my conscience stirred just as it used to be after a serious talk with him: surely that means it is good? I had to write and tell ...

— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Norwegians are specially expert in killing whales. They have been allowed to set up "factories" on the west coast of Ireland and in the Shetlands, where they kill whales with harpoons fired from guns, cut them up, and boil down the fat. ...

— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... the things that they want, get them by seeing the things as they are. Goodness and efficiency both boil down to the same quality in the modern man, his faculty for not being a romantic person and for ...

— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... interesting and romantic circumstances. CAS. But which is it? There are two of them! DUKE. It is true that at present His Majesty is a double gentleman; but as soon as the circumstances of his marriage are ascertained, he will, ipso facto, boil down to a single gentleman—thus presenting a unique example of an individual who becomes a single man and a married man by the same operation. DUCH. (severely). I have known instances in which the characteristics of both conditions existed concurrently in the same individual. ...

— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... have a camp in their maple orchards, where large cauldrons are set in which to boil down the sap to the consistency of a thick syrup: others take the liquid to their houses, and there boil down ...

— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... very proud! I can dig in a bog, Feed pigs or for firewood can split up a log, Clean shoes, riddle cinders, or help to boil down— Or whatever you please, but graze ...

— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson