Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary - alembic

 noun  Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French & Medieval Latin; Middle French alambic & Medieval Latin ~um, from Arabic al-anbiq, from al the + anbiq still, from Late Greek ambik-, ambix ~, from Greek, cap of a still  Date: 14th century  1. an apparatus used in distillation  2. something that refines or transmutes as if by distillation philosophy…filtered through the ~ of Plato's mind — B. T. Shropshire