A direct change of state from the solid to the gaseous state without the appearance of the liquid state. The principle of sublimation is used in freeze drying. Desublimation is sometimes used to describe the condensation of a gas to a solid and ablimation is used to describe the condensation of water vapour to ice.
Geology and Earth Sciences
Direct evaporation from ice. In meteorology, the term is also often applied to the reverse process, in which water vapour changes directly to the solid phase, a process more correctly called deposition. See alsoablation.
Geography
Sublimation is not the direct conversion of solid ice to vapour—as the liquid on the surface of the solid lump has a high partial pressure it rapidly evaporates, so that it appears that the solid phase is changing directly into the gas phase (Holland (2004) Weather 59, 5). Latent heat of sublimation is released in this way.
Philosophy
The repression of a ‘lower’ feeling and substitution of a ‘higher’ one, as when sexual desire is substituted by Platonic love.