1. Chronol. The periodical intercalation of a day or days in the calendar to correct the error arising from the difference between the civil and the solar year. concr. A period of time so intercalated.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), III. 259. Not þe ȝere of þe sonne, noþer of embolisme.
1596. Bell, Surv. Popery, I. III. iv. 107. To make embolismes and intercalations.
a. 1638. Mede, Wks., III. iv. 589, marg. Count the Embolism of 5 days.
1679. Plot, Staffordsh. (1686), 426. An Embolisme of 30 days or a full Month must needs be made somewhere this year.
1788. Marsden, in Phil. Trans., LXXVIII. 417. The year of the Mahometans consists of twelve lunar months … no embolism being employed to adjust it to the solar period.
1796. Hutton, Math. Dict., s.v. Embolismus.
1847. in Craig.
† b. attrib. (in quot. quasi-adj.). Obs.
1588. A. King, trans. Canisius’ Catech., H. vij. Ane moneth … addit to yat ȝere … makis ye same … to be callit embolisme.
2. (nonce-use. See quot.)
1772. Nugent, trans. Hist. Friar Gerund, I. 435. All he has written is a mere embolism or insertion of foreign and absurd matter.
3. Pathol. [cf. EMBOLUS.] (See quot.)
1855. H. Spencer, Princ. Psychol. (1872), I. I. iv. 73. Embolism … a plugging up of an artery with coagulated blood.
1878. T. Bryant, Pract. Surg., I. 431. Embolism is a somewhat common affection and consists in the occlusion of a vessel.
