• enPR kwĭn-tĕsʹ-əns, IPA: /kwɪn.ˈtɛs.əns/, /kwɪn.ˈtɛs.ɨns/

quintessence

1. A thing that is the most perfect example of its type; the most perfect embodiment of something; epitome, prototype.

   Synonyms: Thesaurus:model

   • 1837 Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History

     As families and kindreds sometimes do; producing, after long ages of unnoted notability, some living quintescence of all the qualities they had, to flame forth as a man world-noted[.]

2. A pure substance.

   Synonyms: Thesaurus:non-mixture

3. The essence of a thing in its purest and most concentrated form.

   Synonyms: Thesaurus:gist

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book VII ↗”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗, lines 243–245:

     Let ther be Light, ſaid God, and forthwith Light, / Ethereal, firſt of things, quinteſſence pure, / Sprung from the Deep, [...]

4. (alchemy) The fifth alchemical element, or essence, after earth, air, fire, and water
5. (physics) A hypothetical form of dark energy postulated to explain observations of an accelerating universe.

• French: quintessence
• German: Inbegriff, Quintessenz
• Italian: quintessenza
• Portuguese: quintessência
• Russian: квинтэссе́нция
• Spanish: quintaesencia

quintessence (quintessences, present participle quintessencing; past and past participle quintessenced)

1. (transitive) To reduce to its purest and most concentrated essence.