'sublimate' originates from Latin, specifically the word 'sublimare' (past participle 'sublimatus'), where 'sublimis' meant 'raised up' or 'lofty'.

'sublimare' passed into Late Latin and then into English (via scientific and literary Latin usage) as 'sublimate' in the early modern period; the chemistry sense was established in the 18th–19th centuries and psychological sense was popularized in the late 19th to early 20th century.

Initially, it meant 'to raise up' or 'make lofty' in a general or figurative sense; over time it gained specialized senses: a physical/chemical sense ('to pass from solid to gas or to deposit as a solid') and a psychological sense ('to convert impulses into socially acceptable actions').