Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Refine

Refine (r?*f?n") , transitive verb

[Prefix re- + fine to make fine: compare French raffiner.]

1.
To reduce to a fine, unmixed, or pure state; to free from impurities; to free from dross or alloy; to separate from extraneous matter; to purify; to defecate; as, to refine gold or silver; to refine iron; to refine wine or sugar.
I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined. — Zech. xiii. 9
2.
To purify from what is gross, coarse, vulgar, inelegant, low, and the like; to make elegant or exellent; to polish; as, to refine the manners, the language, the style, the taste, the intellect, or the moral feelings.
Love refines The thoughts, and heart enlarges. — Milton

Refine , intransitive verb

1.
To become pure; to be cleared of feculent matter.
So the pure, limpid stream, when foul with stains, Works itself clear, and, as it runs, refines. — Addison
2.
To improve in accuracy, delicacy, or excellence.
Chaucer refined on Boccace, and mended his stories. — Dryden
But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! How the style refines! — Pope
3.
To affect nicety or subtilty in thought or language.
He makes another paragraph about our refining in controversy. — Atterbury