distillated

Distillated is an adjective used to describe a substance that has been produced or purified by distillation. In modern English, the more common forms are distilled for the process and distilled water or distillate for the product. Distillated appears in some older, dialectal, or nonstandard texts and is generally considered unusual in contemporary scientific and technical writing.

Distillation is a physical separation technique based on differences in volatility. A liquid mixture is heated to vaporize the more volatile components; the vapors are then cooled and condensed back into a liquid. The resulting distillate can have higher purity, a different boiling point, or altered concentration of specific constituents, depending on the design of the apparatus and the number of theoretical plates.

Substances described as distillated may include water, alcoholic beverages, essential oils, solvents, fuels, or laboratory reagents where purification is achieved by distillation. The term emphasizes the action of distillation rather than the identity of the component.

In practice, if you need to describe a liquid that has undergone distillation, it is clearer to say distilled water or the distilled product, and to reserve distillated for rare or historical uses. The noun distillate refers to the product of distillation, while distillation refers to the process itself.