amalgamation

Noun

amalgamation (countable and uncountable, plural amalgamations)

1. The process of amalgamating; a mixture, merger or consolidation.
   • In 1908 Sheng obtained imperial approval for the amalgamation of the Hanyang Ironworks and the Ta-yeh and P'ing-hsiang mines to form the Han-Yeh-P'ing Coal and Iron Company Limited (Han-Yeh-P'ing mei-t'ieh ch'ang-k'uang yu-hsien kung-ssu).1958, Albert Feuerwerker, China's Early Industrialization, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 68
   • There was, however, one proposal which, had it reached fruition, might have had far-reaching effects. This was for the amalgamation of the Caledonian, the Edinburgh & Glasgow, and the Scottish Central Railways, for which a Bill was promoted, but rejected by the Parliamentary Committee on the...1960 January, M. D. Greville, “Scottish Railways in 1860”, in Railway Magazine, page 53
2. The result of amalgamating; a mixture or alloy.
   1. (specifically) The production of an alloy of mercury and another metal, especially used in antiquity to extract gold and silver from ores.
3. (obsolete) The intermarriage and interbreeding of different ethnicities or races.
   • All the circumstances of William, on the great house farm, show him to have occupied a different position from the other slaves, and, certainly, there is nothing in the supposed hostility of slaveholders to amalgamation, to forbid the supposition that William Wilks was the son of Edward Lloyd.1855, Frederick Douglass, chapter VII, in My Bondage and My Freedom. […], New York; Auburn, N.Y.: Miller, Orton & Mulligan […], →OCLC