capillations

Noun

capillation (plural capillations)

1. (obsolete) A capillary (blood vessel).
   • Nor is the humour contained in smaller veins or obscurer capillations, but in a vesicle or little bladder1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC
2. (broadly, obsolete) A branching structure or ramification.
   • This Water is between three and four yards deep in all places, with a fine bottom of soft Marle and Sand; from every part of which in a calm day you may perceive the capillations of almost innumerable fountains, which are the principal feeders of the Tarn.1786, Thomas Hurtley, A Concise Account of Some Natural Curiosities in the Environs of Malham, page 51
3. (obsolete) A hairline fracture of the skull.
   • CAPILLATION, or CAPILLARY fracture, according to some writers, is a fracture in the skull, so small that it can scarce be perceived; but yet it often proves mortal.1786, Ephraim Chambers, Cyclopaedia
4. A pattern of hair-like structures or fine, thread-like projections on the surface of an organism
   • The fact that the majority of the Burma Terebratulids have been burnt has caused the suggestion to be made that the capillation shows on this account more plainly than it would otherwise do. For in certain cases of decortication of the test a sort of capillation may be observed which does not show...1909, S. Buckman, “The Brachiopoda of the Namyau Beds”, in Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India: Palaeontologia Indica, page 184
5. Hair or pelt.
   • The monarch, whose inglorious look (Having a natural-born peruke) Gave rise to this great capillation, Ill treateth sure his gallant nation, And takes too many pains by far In seeking such renown in war,1860, Thornton Leigh Hunt, “Verses on a full flowing Peruke, By Richard Honeycomb (1673)”, in The Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt, page 313
6. The movement of liquid by capillary action.
   • the crown of he ridge is isolated, raised out of reach of the re-active moisture from below, that supports the level of herbage of a meadow in long droughts, and confirms the benefit of the draining-tile under a level surface by increased 'capillation' set up in the soil.1856, Chandos Wren Hoskyns, “On 'Ridge-and-Furrow' Pasture Land, and a method of levelling it”, in Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, page 328

See all 8 meanings of capillation