Distillation – Definition & Meaning

Definition of distillation

: training a smaller "student" model to imitate the outputs of a larger "teacher" model, producing a cheaper model that keeps much of the larger one's ability
- The mini version is a distillation of the flagship model.
- Distillation lets a phone run something close to a data-center model.

Two meanings, one word

In everyday English

Purifying a liquid by heating it and collecting the vapor; extracting the essence of something.

In AI

Training a smaller "student" model to imitate the outputs of a larger "teacher" model, producing a cheaper model that keeps much of the larger one's ability.

Origin & history

first known use2015

Popularized by Geoffrey Hinton, Oriol Vinyals and Jeff Dean in 2015.

Test yourself

Which of these is the meaning of distillation?

Cite this entry

"Distillation." AI Dictionary, Dadgogo, https://dadgogo.com/dictionary/distillation/. Accessed 4 Oct. 2026.