Isn’t there a word that means “purified by fire”? I’ve done a bit of Googling haven’t found anything helpful.
Although some guy called Stephen Prothero wrote a book by that title about the history of cremation in the US. Sounds slightly interesting.
Your help is appreciated.
According to this site, the Greek word katharos (the origin of *catharsis. cathartic[/1]) could mean “purified by fire”.
Another one from Sanskrit:
pyric may be the root you are looking for…
Refine?
Doesn’t the very word purify come from pur, Greek for fire?
Also you might possibly mean distill, though unlikely
KC beat me to it. Dictionary.com lists the root word etymology as “pur” (long u), which also seems to be the source for the prefix pyro, having to do with fire. You may be talking about a cermony or rite, of which there seems to be no shortage of hits on Google when paired with “fire”. Merriam-Webster Online lists “baptism of fire”, and the Christian Purgatory is supposed to cleanse the soul by fire (thus we have purge). Refine is the word you’re looking for if you’re talking about metallurgy, and boil if talking about purifying water.
bordelond, I found those references too, and they weren’t what I was looking for. Thanks for the help.
Rhapsody wins the prize. Thanks, now I can sleep easily. After I get home from work, of course. 