contignation

English

Etymology

Latin contignātiō, from contignō (“I join with beams”), from con- + tignum (“beam”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɒntɪɡˈneɪʃən/

Noun

contignation (plural contignations)

1. The act or process of framing together, or uniting, as beams in a fabric.
   • 1796, Edmund Burke, letter on the genius and character of the French Revolution as it regards other nations:

     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 […]

2. A framework or fabric, as of beams.
   • 1624, Henry Wotton, “The Seate, and the Worke”, in The Elements of Architecture, […], London: […] Iohn Bill, →OCLC, I. part, pages 39–40:

     [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.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “contignation”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)