[n. of action, f. L. crispāre to curl: see -ATION.] Curling, curled condition; formation of slight waves, folds or crinkles; undulation.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 852. Some differ in the Haire … both in the Quantity, Crispation, and Colours of them. Ibid. Heat causeth Pilosity and Crispation.
1668. Culpepper & Cole, Barthol. Anat., I. xxvii. 64. Dismissing its wrinkled Crispations, and becoming very broad.
1714. Derham, Astro-Theol., V. ii. note. The motion of the air and vapours, makes a pretty crispation, and rouling.
1842. Prichard, Nat. Hist. Man (1855), I. 96. A difference in the degree of crispation, some European hair being also very crisp.
b. ‘A slight contraction of any part, morbid or natural, as that of the minute arteries in a wound when they retract, or of the skin in the state called goose-skin’ (Mayne, Expos. Lex.).
1710. T. Fuller, Pharm. Extemp., 150. Painful Crispations of the Fibres.
1871. M. Collins, Mrq. & Merch., II. v. 134. She could not think of marrying him without a shudder, a crispation from head to foot.
1887. O. W. Holmes, in Atlantic Monthly, July, 118/1. Few can look down from a great height without creepings and crispations.
c. Applied to the minute undulations on the surface of a liquid, produced by vibrations of the containing vessel, or by sound-waves.
1831. Faraday, Exp. Res., xlvi. 329. The well-known and peculiar crispations which form on water at the centres of vibration.
1891. Margaret Watts Hughes, in Century Mag., May, 37/2. Upon singing notes of suitable pitch through the tube, not too forcibly, beautiful crispations appear upon the surface of the liquid, which vary with every change of tone.
