spirit of turpentine
- noun
- /ˈspɪrɪt əv ˈtɜr.pənˌtaɪn/
- Specialized
:
aguarrás
- The artist used spirit of turpentine to thin her oil paints before beginning the portrait.
Examples
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You can use spirit of turpentine to clean your brushes.
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Pharmacists once used spirit of turpentine for medicinal preparations, though this is now rare.
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Always ensure good ventilation when working with spirit of turpentine in your studio.
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The artist prefers spirits of turpentine for thinning oil paints.
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The artist used spirit of turpentine to thin her oil paints before beginning the portrait.
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Always ensure good ventilation when working with spirit of turpentine in your studio.
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You can use spirit of turpentine to clean your brushes.
Synonyms
13
7.5
An oily liquid from pine trees that thins paint and cleans brushes
A strong-smelling liquid from pine resin that artists use to thin oil paint
A strong liquid used to thin oil paint and clean brushes
A strong liquid painters use to clean brushes after painting with oil
Surface Forms
Morphology
spirit + of + turpentine
The intended meaning (a volatile distilled solvent) depends on a technical sense of 'spirit' as an extract/volatile, whereas the learner-level definition provided ('a strong drink') does not yield that sense. Knowing 'spirit' as an alcoholic beverage plus 'turpentine' as a solvent would not let a B1 learner reliably infer the specialized chemical meaning, so this is essentially idiomatic/technical rather than transparently compositional.
Etymology
Spirit of turpentine comes from old makers who heated pine resin so a strong-smelling vapor rose and was collected, and they called that clear liquid the spirit of the turpentine. Because this 'spirit' was a thin liquid that evaporated easily, it was used 'to thin paint' and as a 'solvent', so the name came to mean the paint thinner we use today.