Definition of "refine"

refine

/ɹɪˈfaɪn/

verb
third-person singular simple present refines, present participle refining, simple past and past participle refined
1. (transitive) To purify; reduce to a fine, unmixed, or pure state; to free from impurities.
  Quotations
  The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. […] It was used to make kerosene, the main fuel for artificial lighting after overfishing led to a shortage of whale blubber. Other liquids produced in the refining process, too unstable or smoky for lamplight, were burned or dumped.
  2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847
2. (intransitive) To become pure; to be cleared of impure matter.
3. (transitive) To purify of coarseness, vulgarity, inelegance, etc.; to polish.
4. (transitive, intransitive) To improve in accuracy, delicacy, or excellence.
  Quotations
  My dear Harriet, you must not refine too much upon this charade.—You will betray your feelings improperly, if you are too conscious and too quick, and appear to affix more meaning, or even quite all the meaning which may be affixed to it.
  1815, Jane Austen, Emma, volume I, chapter 9
5. (transitive) To make nice or subtle.