Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of burning, scorching, or heating to dryness; the state or being thus heated or dried. Harvey.
  • noun In medicine, cauterization.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete The act of burning, or heating to dryness; the state of being thus heated or dried.
  • noun (Surg.) Cauterization.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete The act of burning, or heating to dryness; the state of being thus heated or dried.
  • noun obsolete, surgery cauterization

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin adustio.

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Examples

  • Laurentius condemns his tenet, because adustion of humours makes men mad, as lime burns when water is cast on it.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • Vega reports of his knowledge, that he hath known melancholy caused from putrefied blood in those seed-veins and womb; [2429] Arculanus, from that menstruous blood turned into melancholy, and seed too long detained (as I have already declared) by putrefaction or adustion.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • And it is not alone in her profession that this gifted adustion has amazed and benefited an incinerated public: to her the world is indebted for the many fire-escapes, life-preservers, salamander safes, improved pompier ladders, play-house exits, standpipes, and Babcock extinguishers of modern times.

    Eugene Field A Study In Heredity And Contradictions Thompson, Slason 1901

Comments

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  • When raising a glass to your host
    The jokes should be tepid at most.
    Some wry, dry adustion
    Bests roaring combustion.
    The gesture's a toast, not a roast.

    April 19, 2015