pectination

Noun

pectination (countable and uncountable, plural pectinations)

1. The state of being pectinate; something which is pectinate; a tooth in a pectinate structure.
   • the complication or pectination of the fingers was an hieroglyphick of impediment1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC
   • This tribe includes beetles of carnivorous habit with five segments on every foot, simple thread-like feelers with none of the segments enlarged to form club or pectination, and the outer lobs (galea) of the first maxilla usually two-segmented and palpiform1911, Encyclopædia Britannica: "Coleoptera" https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Coleoptera
2. The act of combing; the combing of the head.
   • Sir John Rennie, the architect of Waterloo Bridge and other public works, never went to sleep without previously having his hair combed at the back of his head with a fine tooth comb, and rubbed gently with the palm of the hand. This pectination and manipulation induced sound sleep, and after an...1845, Edward Binns, Earl Philip Henry Stanhope Stanhope, The Anatomy of Sleep; Or, The Art of Procuring Sound and Refreshing Slumber at Will, John Churchill, page 401
3. comb-like toothing; a tooth in a pectinate structure.
   • Antennae in the male with 9 very long bipectinations, and the apex bifid to form a tenth, the longest pectination about half as long as the whole antenna1906, Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association. Experiment Station, Entomological Series, Bulletin, number 1, page 80