[f. VARIEGATE v. Cf. Sp. variegacion, Pg. variegação.]
1. The condition or quality of being variegated or varied in color; diversity of color or the production of this; spec. in Bot., the presence of two or more colors in the leaves, petals or other parts of plants; also, defective or special development leading to such coloring.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., 364. He … that could content himselfe … that the variegation of Birds was from their living in the Sunne.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Variegation, a garnishing with divers colours.
1758. Johnson, Idler, No. 64, ¶ 5. I happened to catch a moth of peculiar variegation.
1775. Adair, Amer. Indians, 3. The variegation … of colours among the human race.
1843. Penny Cycl., XXVI. 142/1. This variegation of the leaves sometimes disappears.
1861. Bentley, Man. Bot., 745. Variegation in leaves must be regarded as a diseased condition of the cells of which they are composed.
1882. G. Allen, in Nature, XXVI. 3 Aug., 323/2. When we come to consider the subject of variegation [of colours in flowers] and of reversion or retrogression.
b. With a and pl. Also, a variegated marking.
1664. Evelyn, Kal. Hort., 77. Plant them [tulips] in natural earth somewhat impoverish’d with very fine sand; else they will soon lose their variegations.
1725. Fam. Dict., s.v. Florist’s Year (Sept.), Remembering always ’tis Nourishment is the Cause of Variegations in Plants.
1771. Phil. Trans., LXI. 48. The beautiful variegations in them [specimens of marble] may have probably been occasioned by the mineral vapours.
1796. Kirwan, Elem. Min. (ed. 2), II. 78. Its colours … passing into variegations.
1828. Stark, Elem. Nat. Hist., I. 471. Body brown, smooth, with white variegations.
1884. Browning, Ferishtah (1885), 112. And where’s the gloom now?—silver-smitten straight, One glow and variegation!
2. The action or process of diversifying or rendering varied in character; an instance or occasion of this.
1668. H. More, Div. Dial., LII. xxiii. 451. There being Folly and Wickedness all over the World, it is better there should be this variegation of it, then that it should be every-where in the same dress.
a. 1680. Glanvill, Disc. Serm. & Rem., x. (1681), 376. His attributes are but the several modes and variegations of Almighty Love.
1727. Pope, etc., Art Sinking, 97. For variegation, nothing is more useful than the Paranomasia, or Pun.
1775. Johnson, West. Isl., Wks. 1825, IX. 157. The variegation of time by terms and vacations. Ibid. (1777), Lett. (1788), I. 363. Do not omit painful casualties, or unpleasing passages; they make the variegation of existence.
1834. Ht. Martineau, Moral, III. 85. The diversity of production which takes place on the earth, occasioning … a perpetual variegation and augmentation of commodities.
† b. Alternation of (one thing with another). Obs.
1779. Johnson, L. P., Addison, Wks. III. 47. His … variegation of prose and verse, however, gains upon the reader.
