Also 7 -acion. [f. FOLIATE a.: see -ATION and cf. Fr. foliation.]
1. The leafing (of a plant); the process of bursting into leaf; the state of being in leaf.
1623. Cockeram, Foliation, budding of the leaues.
1779. Mason, Eng. Gard., III. 221. Plants … rul’d by Foliation’s different law.
1795. Gentl. Mag., 540/1. Between total denudation and perfect foliation the rind … of various trees exhibits various tints.
1864. in Webster.
b. concr. † (a) Something resembling a leaf; (b) a leaf-like process.
1658. Sir T. Browne, The Garden of Cyrus, iii. 48. Thus are also disposed the triangular foliations, in the conicall fruit of the firre tree, orderly shadowing and protecting the winged seeds below them.
1875. Blake, Zool., 55. The second division [of these bats] has the nose complicated by variously shaped and grotesque membranous foliations.
2. Bot. † a. The assemblage of leaves or petals forming the corolla of a flower. Obs.
1671. [see ATTIRE sb. 8].
1746–7. Hervey, Medit. (1818), 110. Thou wilt not find a rival in the feathers of a peacock, or the foliation of a tulip.
b. The formation or arrangement of leaves in the bud; = VERNATION.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., xxxi. 485. The foliation, or different folding of the leaves, before they are expanded.
1835. Lindley, Introd. Bot. (1848), I. 176. The manner in which the young leaves are arranged within the leaf-bud is called foliation, or vernation. Ibid. (1845), Sch. Bot., iv. (1858), 25. Flowers regular, with straight anther-valves, parietal placentation, and gyrate foliation.
3. The action or process of beating (metal) into foil.
1755. Johnson, Foliation, the act of beating into thin leaves.
1828. in Webster; and in mod. Dicts.
4. Geol. The process and the property of splitting up into leaf-like layers; also the laminæ or plates into which crystalline rocks are divided.
1851–9. Darwin, in Man. Sci. Enq., 283. The foliation of the metamorphic schists, that is, the origin of the layers of quartz, mica, feldspar, and other minerals, of which gneiss, micaceous, chloritic, and hornblendic schists are composed, is intimately connected with the cleavage of homogeneous slaty rocks.
1867. D. Page, Advd. Text-Bk. Geol., viii. 143. Dykes of hornblende-rock, greenstone, and porphyry, causing irregular contortions and foliations among the gneiss and mica-schists.
5. Arch. Ornamentation with foils; tracery consisting chiefly of small arcs or foils.
1816. [see FEATHERING vbl. sb. 2 b].
1849. Freeman, Archit., 280. The pointed arch occurs, but not frequently, the form usually employed being the common round arch, either plain or enriched with those foliations hanging free like lace-work, which add so much of gorgeousness to this style.
1853. Ruskin, Stones Ven., II. vi. Foliation, while it is the most distinctive and peculiar, is also the easiest method of decoration which Gothic architecture possesses; and, although in the disposition of the proportions and forms of foils, the most noble imagination may be shown, yet a builder without imagination at all, or any other faculty of design, can produce some effect upon the mass of his work by merely covering it with foolish foliation.
b. An arrangement of foliage.
1875. Pollen, Anc. & Mod. Furn., 85. The fashion is quaint and grotesque, the figure sculpture being good enough to look well in the form of caryatid monsters, half men, half terminal posts or acanthus foliations, but not sufficiently correct or graceful to stand altogether alone.
6. The consecutive numbering of the folios (or leaves) of a book or MS.
1846–7. Maskell, Mon. Rit., II. p. xxiii.–xxiv. These (as has been seen) beginning with fresh signatures, and foliation, may be mistaken for perfect books.
1885. C. Plummer, Introd. to Fortescue’s Abs. & Lim. Mon., 88. The Monarchia occupies ff. 172–194 according to the old foliation.
7. The action or process of applying foil to glass.
1828. in Webster; and in mod. Dicts.
