The quintessence is the purest and most typical form of something. The quintessence of style, the very quintessence, quintessence of Englishness.
The word comes from medieval philosophy, where the quintessence was a fifth element beyond earth, water, air and fire, the substance the heavens were made of. Alchemists tried to distil it, which is where the sense of a pure extract comes from.
1nounquintessenceThe purest and most typical form of something.
“With its thatched cottages and village green, the place was the quintessence of rural England.”
quintessence is an essence.
Medieval Latin quinta essentia means fifth essence, the element the heavens were held to be made of.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₁es-
Medieval Latin
quinta essentia — fifth essence, aether
English, today
quintessence
From Middle English -, borrowed from Middle French -, from Medieval Latin quinta essentia (“fifth essence, aether”), equivalent to quint- + essence. "Essence" in this context is a synonym for "element". In pre-atomic/Aristotelian theory, there are four known elements or essences — Earth, Air, Fire and Water — and a putative fifth element (aether), which is considered to be of exceptional superior quality to the other four basic elements.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA