visitation

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The action or an instance of visiting or an instance of being visited.
• noun An official visit for the purpose of inspection or examination, as of a bishop to a diocese.
• noun The provision made for a parent to spend time with a child who is in the physical custody of another.
• noun A gathering of people in remembrance of a deceased person, especially in the presence of the body at a funeral home.
• noun An inflicting of punishment or affliction or a dispensation of comfort and blessing regarded as being ordained by God.
• noun A calamitous event or experience; a grave misfortune.
• noun The appearance or arrival of a supernatural being.
• noun The visit of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth.
• noun May 31, observed in commemoration of this event.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The act of visiting, or paying a visit; a visit.
• noun The object of a visit.
• noun A formal or judicial visit paid periodically by a superior, superintending officer, or other competent authority, to a corporation, college, church, or other house, for the purpose of examining into the manner in which the business of the body is conducted, and its laws and regulations are observed and executed, or the like; specifically (ecclesiastical), such examination by a bishop of the churches in his diocese,with the added purpose of administering coufirmation.
• noun A special dispensation from heaven sometimes of divine favor, more usually of divine retribution; divine retributive affliction;hence a similar incident of less importance, whether joyful or grievous.
• noun In international law, the act of a naval commander who visits or boards a vessel belonging to another state for the purpose of ascetaining her character and object.
• noun [capitalized] A church festival in honor of the visit of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth (Luke i. 39), celebrated on July 2d in the Roman Catholic, Greek, and other churches.
• noun In zoology, an extensive, irregular, or otherwise notable migration into a place or country; an irruption, incursion, or invasion: as,a visitation of lemmings, of the Bohemian waxwing southward, or of the sand-grouse from Asia into France or England.
• noun In her., an investigation by a high heraldic officer, usually one of the kings-at-arms, into the pedigrees, intermarriages, etc., of a family or the families of a district, with a view of ascertaining whether the arms borne by any person or persons living in that district are incorrect or unwarrantably assumed.

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

• noun The act of visiting, or the state of being visited; access for inspection or examination.
• noun Specifically: The act of a superior or superintending officer who, in the discharge of his office, visits a corporation, college, etc., to examine into the manner in which it is conducted, and see that its laws and regulations are duly observed and executed.
• noun obsolete The object of a visit.
• noun (Internat. Law) The act of a naval commander who visits, or enters on board, a vessel belonging to another nation, for the purpose of ascertaining her character and object, but without claiming or exercising a right of searching the vessel. It is, however, usually coupled with the right of search (see under Search), visitation being used for the purpose of search.
• noun Special dispensation; communication of divine favor and goodness, or, more usually, of divine wrath and vengeance; retributive calamity; retribution; judgment.
• noun (Eccl.) A festival in honor of the visit of the Virgin Mary to Elisabeth, mother of John the Baptist, celebrated on the second of July.
• noun (R. C. Ch.) a religious community of nuns, founded at Annecy, in Savoy, in 1610, and in 1808 established in the United States. In America these nuns are devoted to the education of girls.

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

• noun The act of visiting, or an instance of being visited.
• noun An official visit to inspect or examine something.
• noun An encounter with supernatural beings such as ghosts or aliens.
• noun The right of a separated or divorced parent to visit a child; access.
• noun A punishment or blessing ordained by God.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun an annoying or frustrating or catastrophic event
• noun any disaster or catastrophe
• noun an official visit for inspection or supervision