septimation

English

WOTD – 31 August 2011

From Latin septimus (“seventh”) +‎ -ation, after decimation; compare septimate.

septimation (countable and uncountable, plural septimations)

(rare) The loss, seizure, destruction, or killing of one seventh (of something or of a group).
- 1844, J.A.T., “Observations on the Genius of the Christian Sabbath, as Illustrated in the Life of Wilberforce”, in The Oberlin Evangelist‎^[1], volume VI, number 5, page 40:
  To Wilberforce ‘the Sabbath was a delight’ […] O how often, even among those who most punctiliously observe it, does it seem […] an unwelcome exaction, a sort of septimation of time, as grievous as church decimations of property.
- 1853, William Jackman, “chapter XVII”, in I. Chamberlayne, editor, The Australian Captive‎^[2], page 206:
  We had gone into the enemy’s ground with seven hundred warriors — a little over one hundred of whom were missing when we left it — as, at that time, we could hardly muster six hundred. This septimation of our men was accompanied by a proportionate riddance of such encumbrances of the expedition as wore the shape of women and little ones.

(proportionate reduction, by single aliquot part): quintation (1/5), decimation (1/10), vicesimation (1/20), tricesimation (1/30), centesimation (1/100)