[ad. L. type compartītiōn-em, n. of action f. compartīrī to COMPART.] The action of comparting.
† 1. Division and sharing with another. Obs.
1636. Brathwait, Roman Emperors, 62. Crownes hardly admit the compartition even of a brother.
2. Arch. The distribution and disposition of the parts of a plan; laying out.
1624. Wotton, Archit., in Reliq. Wotton. (1672), 39. I am now come to the Casting and Contexture of the whole Work, comprehended under the term of Compartition.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., s.v., By Compartition Architects understand a graceful and useful distribution of the whole ground-plot.
1726. Leoni, trans. Alberti’s Archit., I. 2 a. The Compartition is that which subdivides the whole Platform of the House into smaller Platforms.
b. One of the parts so marked out and divided.
[So J. and others after him, but the quots. may belong to 2.]
1624. Wotton, Archit., in Reliq. Wotton. (1672), 14. Save in their Temples and Amphi-Theaters, which needed no Compartitions.
1658. Sir T. Browne, Gard. Cyrus, iii. 54. We might examine their artifice in the contignations, the rule and order in the compartitions.
