contignations

Noun

contignation (plural contignations)

1. (archaic) The act or process of framing or slotting together, or uniting, like beams in a fabric.
   • They were easily led to consider the flames that were consuming France, not as a warning to protect their own buildings (which were without any party wall, and linked by a contignation into the edifice of France,) but as an happy occasion […]1796, Edmund Burke, letter on the genius and character of the French Revolution as it regards other nations
2. (archaic) A framework or fabric, such as of beams.
   • [W]hen vvee ſpeake of the Intercolumniation or diſtance, vvhich is due to each Order, vve meane in a Dorique, Ionicall, Corinthian Porch, or Cloiſter, or the like of one Contignation, and not in Storied buildings.1624, Henry Wotton, “The Seate, and the Worke”, in The Elements of Architecture, […], London: […] Iohn Bill, →OCLC, I. part, pages 39–40