torrefaction

1. (more generally) The act or process of subjecting something to heat or to highly acidic substances.Examples: "They now began by a change of diet and other precautions to prepare themselves to encounter the torrefaction of a tropical climate, and in somewhat more than a fortnight arrived in Carlisle Bay in the island of Barbadoes, which was appointed the general rendezvous of the expedition."; "The walls of the stomach are lined with a nerve-interwoven delicat membrane, which suffers from scalding fluids as much as any other tegumental tissues of the body, and by daily torrefactions becomes either callous or chronically inflamed, and in either case less fit for the performance of its important functions."; "Men of both these types abound in medicine especially, aside from the great mass of the unlearned, who, if perchance they have heard some mechanistic explanation of Descartes's and badly comprehended it (for indeed the whole system of Descartes is far above their heads), or if (bemused by the tricks of certain smoke-peddlers) they have learned to make some trifle at great cost with the aid of an evil-smelling torrefaction, they declare themselves not merely philosophers but the only wise men and cultivators of true medicine."broadlycountableuncountable

2. (figurative) An angry outburst; vituperation.Examples: "Some Commentators take no notice of this Parallel, but certainly it is not to be omitted, nay it is of very great moment; and the manner of speech very fitly and significantly expresses the Heat, the Height of God's wrath kindled against Sinners; We see this Torrefaction is adapted to the usual language of Scripture, where the Extremity of the Divine Anger against the wicked is set forth by fire, with which (saith the Learned and Pious Bochart) it behoved Christ to be as it were scorched and burnt, who had made himself a Surety for Sinners, that he might undergo the Punishment which they deserved."; "Under such torrefaction the doctor suffered an ebullition of his anger and he replied : “You are rather pachycephalic not to understand what I have said."countablefigurativelyuncountable