adustion

English

Etymology

Latin adustiō.

Noun

adustion (countable and uncountable, plural adustions)

1. (obsolete) The act of burning, or heating to dryness; the state of being thus heated or dried.
   • 1609, The Holie Bible, […] (Douay–Rheims Bible), Doway: Lavrence Kellam, […], →OCLC, Exodvs 21:23–25, page 222:

     But if her death doe enſue thereupon, he shal render life for life, / eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foote for foote, / aduſtion for aduſtion, wound for wound, ſtripe for ſtripe.

   • 1672, Gideon Harvey, Morbus Anglicus, Or, The Anatomy of Consumptions:

     it must be by aduſtion or putting it into a fame

   • 2015, Alanna Skuse, Constructions of Cancer in Early Modern England:

     Even while disputing the model, Gendron and Wiseman, both prominent medical authors and practitioners, grudgingly admitted that adustion had become the predominant theory on the generation of cancers.

   • 2018, Martha Vandrei, Queen Boudica and Historical Culture in Britain, page 62:

     In Heywood's hands, this became though by her complection, her constitution might seeme to be cold, yet her noble actions declared that choler had the predominance in her, even to adustion, her eyes were sparkling sharpe and piercing, her tongue shrill and harsh, as her person was tall and great...'

2. (surgery, obsolete) Cauterization.
   • 1607, Edward Topsell, History of Four Footed Beasts:

     some use to apply this to the fat, but in our time it is all out of use, and seeing yet the pains of the hip do rather fall into the thighs, shins, and legs, then ascend up into the Arms and shoulders, Aetius and Cornarius say, that this adustion for the hips was used in the ancient time divers ways, and some on this manner, holding the burning dung in a pair of tongs unto the leg of that side where the pain lyeth, untill the adustion be felt in the hip, and this course used Discorides.

   • 1703, John Brown, The Surgeon's Assistant, page 88:

     Albucasis adviseth that neither incision nor adustion is to be made in the Neck or Throat; because of the many Vessels, as Arteries, Nerves and Veins, there every where planted;

   • 1818, Samuel Latham Mitchill, The Medical Repository, page 166:

     The second reason is, the want of some approved and methodised treatise, defining the diseases which would exclusively require the actual cautery, the diagnosis or pathological state of others which might require its application, with comparative statements of the best mode of adustion of materials with which it should be effected; […]

Translations

the act of burning or heating to dryness

• Portuguese: adustão f

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “adustion”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• sudation

French

Pronunciation

• Audio:

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Noun

adustion f (plural adustions)

1. (medicine) cauterization

Further reading

• “adustion”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Old French

Noun

adustion oblique singular, f (oblique plural adustions, nominative singular adustion, nominative plural adustions)

1. heat; high temperature