[a. F. exfoliation, f. as prec.: see -ATION.]
1. Surg. and Path. The action or process of exfoliating.
1676. Wiseman, Chirurg. Treat., IV. iv. 264. The bone laid bare in order to Exfoliation.
c. 1720. W. Gibson, Farrier’s Dispens., I. i. (1734), 25. Euphorbium … It’s Tincture is often applied to Bones that are laid bare, to hasten an Exfoliation.
1741. Monro, Anat. (ed. 3), 51. The Exfoliation which Cartilages are subject to.
1797. M. Baillie, Morb. Anat. (1807), 89. The cricoid cartilage, being converted into bone, was separated by exfoliation.
1851. Carpenter, Man. Phys. (ed. 2), 173. This moulting is precisely analogous to the exfoliation and new formation of the Epidermis, in Man.
b. transf. Cf. EXFOLIATE 3.
1802. Playfair, Illustr. Hutton. Th., 31. This stone is … subject to perpetual exfoliation.
1816. R. Jameson, Char. Min. (1817), 294. Exfoliation, or the separation of the folia of a mineral from each other.
1848–53. Layard, Nineveh, ix. 223. A kind of exfoliation had taken place on the surface of the glass vase.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. i. 6. The exfoliation of rails, the fibres of iron, [etc.].
1884. Bower & Scott, De Bary’s Phaner. & Ferns, 413. In old age they [parenchymatous cells] die off … after breaking up into layers or rows (exfoliation).
2. That which is exfoliated; an exfoliated portion; a ‘coat’ or layer in the stem of a tree.
1750. G. Hughes, Barbados, 110. The several exfoliations of its [a tree’s] green part were equal in number to its branches.
1835. Lindley, Introd. Bot. (1848), I. 238. The spongelets of the aerial roots consist of … exfoliations of the epiphlœum.
1876. Gross, Dis. Bladder, 27. Such casts … are mistaken for exfoliations of the lining membrane.
