a. [f. Gr. ἐς into + ἔν, neut. of εἴς + πλαστικ-ός, f. πλάσσειν to mold: a word irregularly formed by Coleridge, and probably suggested to him by the Ger. ineinsbildung forming into one.] Having the function of molding into unity; unifying.
1817. Coleridge, Biog. Lit., I. xiii. 285. On the imagination, or esemplastic power.
1827. Hare, Guesses, Ser. I. (1873), 220. Nor I trust will Coleridge’s favorite word esemplastic … ever become current.
1879. Farrar, St. Paul, II. 488. The unifying—or, if I may use the expression, esemplastic—power of the imagination over the many subordinate truths.
