[a. mod. Fr. affiliation (Cotgr.), ad. med.L. affīliātiōn-em n. of action f. affīliāre: see AFFILIATE1.]
1. ‘Adoption; the act of taking a son.’ Chambers. The establishment of sonship.
1751. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., Among the antient Gauls, Affiliation was a sort of adoption only practised among the great.
1867. J. Martineau, Chr. Life (ed. 4), 117. Let there be a conscious affiliation with God.
2. Adoption, by a society, of subordinate branches; union of branches to a supreme or central organization.
1799. S. Turner, Hist. A.-Sax. (1828), II. VI. 258. The hoary advocates of a new system … whose Affiliation and credit multiplied their power.
1868. M. Pattison, Academ. Organ., § 5. 195. The numerous art-schools scattered over the country in affiliation to the establishment at South Kensington.
3. The fixing of the paternity of a child. Also fig. The fathering of a thing upon any one; and, the assignment of anything to its origin.
1830. Hor. Smith, Tin Trum. (1870), 15. Man has been termed the child of affliction, an affiliation of which the writer does not recognise the truth.
1836. W. Robinson, Justice of Peace, II. VI. 541. The original order of affiliation was not actually destroyed, but only suspended during the lives of the husband and mother.
1859. Edin. Rev., No. 293. 50. The question of the originality of Greek art or of its affiliation on Egypt.
