Also 8 exhinanition. Now rare. [ad. L. exinānītiōn-em, n. of action f. exinānīre: see EXINANITE.]

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  1.  The action or process of emptying or exhausting, whether in a material or immaterial sense; emptied or exhausted condition.

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1603.  Florio, Montaigne, III. viii. (1632), 522. It [learning] doth easily purifie, clarifie, extenuate and subtilize them [minds] even unto exinanition or evacuation.

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a. 1636.  Donne, Ess. (1651), 118. Replenishing the World after that great Exinanition by the generall Deluge.

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1633.  Earl Manch., Al Mondo (1636), 201. Some … cared not to afford common assistance to nature, and so have dyed through exinanition and want of strength.

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1649.  Jer. Taylor, Gt. Exemp., I. 6. A life whose stories tell of … fastings to the exinanition of spirits.

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1720.  Gibson, Diet. Horses, v. (ed. 3), 81. Whether the signs be Repletion and fulness, or Exhinanition and Lowness of his Flesh.

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1819.  Coleridge, in Athenæum, 7 Jan. 1888, 17/3. Dante … asks for an evacuation and exinanition of Marsyas, that so he [Dante] might become a mere vessel … of the Deity.

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1862.  A. H. Clough, in Macm. Mag., Aug., 323. Life at very birth destroyed, Atrophy, exinanition!

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1884.  Syd. Soc. Lex., Exinanition, a thorough and complete emptying.

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  2.  The action or process of emptying of pride, self-will or dignity; abasement, humiliation; an instance of this; also, a state of humiliation.

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1627.  Donne, Serm., v. (1640), 45. This exinanition of our selves is acceptable in the sight of God.

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1649.  Jer. Taylor, Gt. Exemp., III. xv. 129. He was to take upon him all the affronts, miseries and exinanitions of the most miserable.

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1652.  Benlowes, Theoph., IV. lviii. I’l press still Th’ Exinanition of my o’regrown will.

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1686.  H. More, in Norris, Theory Love (1688), 187. The scope they aym at … is a perfect exinanition of ourselves, that we may be filled with the sense of God.

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  b.  esp. of Christ; with reference to Phil. ii. 8.

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a. 1612.  Donne, Βιαθανατος (1644), 188. Christ said this now, because his Passion was begun; for all his conversations here were degrees of exinanition.

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1659.  Pearson, Creed, 244. His exinanition consisted in the assumption of the form of a servant.

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1855.  W. H. Mill, Applic. Panth. Princ. (1861), 26. The death of the God-man is only the throwing off of his exinanition or humiliation.

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1882–3.  Schaff, Encycl. Relig. Knowl., I. 463. [The Kenotic theory] teaches a temporary, self-exinanition … of the pre-existent Logos.

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