[n. of action f. med.L. calcināre: see CALCINE and -ATION.]
1. The action or process of calcining; reduction by fire to a ‘calx,’ powder, or friable substance; the subjecting of any infusible substance to a roasting heat.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Chan. Yem. Prol. & T., 251. Oure fourneys eek of Calcinacion [v.r. Calcynacion].
1393. Gower, Conf., II. 86. The point of sublimation And forth with calcination.
1583. Plat, Divers New Exper. (1594), 22. Wheresoeuer there bee any stones that be subiect to calcination.
1610. B. Jonson, Alch., II. v. (1616), 632. Name the vexations, and the martyrizations Of mettalls in the worke … Putrefaction Solution, Ablution, Sublimation, Cohobation, Calcination, Ceration, and Fixation.
1678. R. R[ussell], trans. Geber, II. I. IV. xiv. 120. Calcination is the Pulverization of a Thing by Fire.
1831. R. Knox, Cloquet’s Anat., 167. Bones … may be freed of the animal matter by calcination.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, I. 573. The process of burning lime, to expel the carbonic acid, is one of calcination.
† b. Extended to other processes producing similar results; or used as synonymous with oxidation in general. Obs.
1612. Woodall, Surg. Mate, Wks. (1653), 268. Calcination is solution of bodies into Calx or Alcool, by desiccation of the native humidity, by reverberate ignition, by Amalgamation, by Aqua fortis, the Spirit of salt Vitriol, Sulphur, or the like.
1641. French, Distill., i. (1651), 9. Calcination … may be done two waies—by firing, by Corosion.
1751. Chambers, Cycl., s.v.
1791. Hamilton, Berthollet’s Dyeing, I. I. I. i. 10. According to its degree of oxydation (calcination).
1822. Imison, Sc. & Art, II. 20. The process of combining a metal with oxygen was called calcination, now oxigenation.
2. gen. A burning to ashes, complete combustion.
1616. Bullokar, Calcination, a burning, a turning into ashes.
1722. Wollaston, Relig. Nat., V. 92. The earth reformed out of its ashes and ruins after such a calcination.
1822. Blackw. Mag., XII. 280. Those burnings of barns … and the general calcination which has gone through the country.
3. A calcined condition.
1830. Lyell, Princ. Geol., I. 28. Steno had compared the fossil shells … and traced the various gradations from the state of mere calcination, when their natural gluten only was lost, to the perfect substitution of stony matter.
b. concr. That which has been calcined, a calcined product or ‘calcinate.’
1712. trans. Pomet’s Hist. Drugs, I. 104. Fritt is … a Calcination of those Materials which make Glass.
1725. Bradley, Fam. Dict., II. s.v., A quarter of an Ounce of this Calcination.
