[f. CENTRALIZE + -ATION, or ad. F. centralisation.]
1. The action of centralizing or fact of being centralized; gathering to a center.
1801. Dupré, Neolog. Fr. Dict., 44. Such is the effect of the centralization of government.
1835–6. Todd, Cycl. Anat., I. 763/2. This tendency to centralization is still more conspicuous in the Phyllosoma.
1849. Ruskin, Sev. Lamps, vi. § 2. 164. It is as the centralisation and protectress of this sacred influence that Architecture is to be regarded.
1869. Mill, Liberty, 204. The greatest possible centralization of information, and diffusion of it from the centre.
2. esp. The concentration of administrative power in the hands of a central authority, to which all inferior departments, local branches, etc., are directly responsible.
[See 1801 in 1.]
1822. Ann. Reg., II. 793. Centralization—that ferocious hydra which has preyed upon … Europe for a century.
1836. Bp. of Exeter, Charge, 33. The vice of modern legislation … ‘centralization’ as it is called; a word not more strange to our language, than the practice … is foreign to our ancient habits and feelings.
1863. Bates, Nat. Amazons, I. 38. To combine happily the principles of local self-government and centralisation.
