Other forms: refined, refining, refines
To refine is to improve something by removing what is rough or impure. Refine the process, refine an argument, refine the design.
In industry it is literal: crude oil is refined into petrol, sugar cane into refined sugar, ore into pure metal — and a refinery is where it happens. In ordinary use it means polishing and adjusting: a refined version, we refined it over about six months. Refined as an adjective also describes a person as cultivated and well-mannered, which can be admiring or faintly mocking depending on who is saying it.
1verbrefineTo improve something by removing what is rough or impure.
“They refined the design through about a dozen versions.”
2verbpurifyTo purify a substance industrially.
“The crude oil is refined a few miles up the coast.”
refine is a way of improving.
Also accepted in games: polish
Latin
fīniō — to finish
Old French
fin — fine, minute, exact
Middle English
fin
English
fine
English, today
refine
Built from
From re- + fine. fine comes from Middle English fin, fyn, from Old French fin (“fine, minute, exact”), of obscure origin, but probably derived from Latin fīniō (“to finish”) or fīnis (“boundary, limit, end”), with an abstract sense of fine or thin also arising in many Romance languages (compare Italian, Portuguese and Spanish fino). a doublet of fino.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA