[ad. (directly or through Fr. adjuration, 16th c. in Litt.) L. adjūrātiōn-em, n. of action f. adjūrā-re: see ADJURE.] The action of adjuring; a solemn charging or appealing to (one) upon oath, or under penalty of a curse; an earnest appeal.
1611. Cotgr., Adjuration, An adjuration, or conjuration; an earnest swearing unto; also, th’ exaction of an oath from others.
a. 1638. Mede, On Zach. iv. 10, Wks. I. 42. S. Paul speaks in adjuration to Timothy, ‘I charge thee (saith he) before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Elect Angels.’
1738. Clarke, Wks., II. cxxv. (R.). Our Saviour when the high-priest adjured him by the living God, made no scruple of replying upon that adjuration.
1803. Miss Porter, Thadd. Warsaw, i. (1831), 5. My sobs followed this adjuration.
1858. Froude, Hist. Eng., IV. xxiii. 530. An adjuration as vain as it was earnest.
1858. Gladstone, Homer, III. 160. The Rivers are expressly invoked, in this character, by Agamemnon in the adjuration of the Poet: and are associated with the deities that punish perjury after death.
b. spec. in exorcism.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Persones T., 529. Thilke horrible sweryng of adjuracioun and conjuraciouns, as doon these false enchauntours or nigromanciens.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., II. i. I. i. (1651), 221. Our Pontificiall writers retain many of these adjurations and forms of exorcismes.
1635. Pagitt, Christianogr., I. iii. (1636), 158. An Adiuration of the Divell and a Renuntiation or renouncing of him.
1751. Chambers, Cycl., Adjuration, a part of exorcism, wherein the devil is commanded in the name of God, to depart out of the body of the possessed.
1875. B. Taylor, Faust, I. vi. 109. Come, draw thy circle, speak thine adjuration.
