compellations

Noun

compellation (plural compellations)

1. (archaic, rare) An act of addressing a person by a certain name or title.
   • What are the parts of this prayer [the Lord's Prayer]? They are three. 1. A Preface of compellation for entrance into prayer, in the firſt words, Our Father which art in heaven, &c.1645, James Usher [i.e., James Ussher], “[Of Prayer in Generall, and the Lords Prayer in Particular, with the Preamble thereof]”, in A Body of Divinitie, or The Svmme and Svbstance of Christian...
2. (archaic, rare) A name or title by which someone is addressed or identified; an appellation, a designation.
   • Like that of the Thruſh and Swallow in Æſope, Inſteed of mutual loue, kind compellations, whore & thief is heard, they fling ſtooles at one anothers heads.1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Democritvs Ivnior to the Reader”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for...
3. (obsolete) An act of addressing or speaking to someone; also, the address or speech so made.
   • [O]ne Cornet [George] Joyce a buſie pragmatical perſon, whom [Oliver] Cromwell his Familiar had tutored in the Method of Boldneſſe and Rebellion, was privately conferred with about it, and after ſome familiar compellations hugged into the Conſpiracy, and immediately diſpatched away with a party of...1665, [James Heath], Flagellum: Or The Life and Death, Birth and Burial of O. Cromwell, the Late Usurper: Faithfully Described. […], 3rd edition, London: […] W. G. for Randall Taylor, […], →OCLC...