[ad. L. fulgurātiōn-em, n. of action f. fulgurāre: see FULGURATE and -ATION. Cf. F. fulguration.]
1. The action of lightning or flashing like lightning; chiefly in pl. flashes of lightning. Now rare in literal sense.
1633. J. Done, Hist. Septuagint, 57. Your Eyes … were so incountred with the order and splendor of the workes … so as you should be forced to turn them elsewhere or not too stedfastly behold their Fulguration.
1642. Howell, For. Trav. (Arb.), 12. Though thunder be first in Nature, being by the violent eruption it makes out of the Cloud, the cause of such fulgurations.
1813. T. Forster, Atmosph. Phaenom. (1815), 76. The vespertine figurations, called summer lightning, are not followed by any thunder at all.
fig. 1874. H. R. Reynolds, John Bapt., ii. 88. They [angels] are the fulgurations of His power.
1877. E. Caird, A Critical Account of the Philosophy of Kant, I. v. 85–6. God alone is the primitive unity or simple originative substance, of which all the creative or derivative monads are the productions, born, as it were, of the continual fulgurations of divinity from moment to moment.
2. In Assaying. (See quots.) Cf. BLICK.
1676. Coles, Fulguration, a reducing metals into vapours by the help of lead (in a copel) and a violent fire.
1758. Reid, trans. Macquer’s Chym., I. 323. The surface of that metal will at once dart out a dazling splendour: but, if the fire be strong enough to keep the Silver in fusion … this change of colour, which is called its fulguration, will not be so perceptible, and the Silver will appear like a bead of fire.
1853. Ure, Dict. Arts, I. 98. When the lead is wasted to a certain degree, a very thin film of it only remains on the silver, which causes the iridescent appearance, like the colours of soap-bubbles; a phenomenon, called by the old chemists, fulguration.
