assimilations

Noun

assimilation (countable and uncountable, plural assimilations)

1. The act of assimilating or the state of being assimilated.
   • --France swarms with Gracchus's and Publicolas, who by imaginary assimilations of acts, which a change of manners has rendered different, fancy themselves more than equal to their prototypes.1797, An English Lady, A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795
2. The metabolic conversion of nutrients into tissue.
   • We have great need to be careful in these assimilations; some kinds of food are rich but not easily digested.1908, Washington Gladden, The Church and Modern Life
3. (broadly) The absorption of new ideas into an existing cognitive structure.
4. A sound change process by which the phonetics of a speech segment becomes more like that of another segment in a word (or at a word boundary), so that a change of phoneme occurs.
   • Hence, rather than being the result of mishearing and assimilation, the application of Hobson-Jobson to the Muharram was intentionally disparaging.2014, James Lambert, “A Much Tortured Expression: A New Look At `Hobson-Jobson'”, in International Journal of Lexicography, volume 27, number 1, page 59
5. (cultural studies) The adoption, by a minority group, of the customs and attitudes of the dominant culture.
   • After centuries of British cultural assimilation, a majority of Irish now speak English instead of Irish.