Also 7–8 -ulation. [prob. a. F. assimilation, ad. L. assimilātiōn-em, n. of action f. assimilāre to ASSIMILATE; but it may have been taken directly from the L.]
1. The action of making or becoming like; the state of being like; similarity, resemblance, likeness.
1605. Timme, Quersit., I. xv. 74. The elimentary or nourishing humour of life … is called the assimilation or resemblance of the nourishment and nourished.
1660. Stanley, Hist. Philos. (1701), 180/1. Wisdom … is nothing else but an Assimulation to the Deity.
1830. Sir J. Herschel, Stud. Nat. Phil., 302. The assimilation of gases and vapours.
1869. Lubbock, Preh. Times, viii. 277. Ten times fifty years must elapse before their complete assimilation can be effected.
2. The becoming conformed to; conformity with. arch.
1677. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., II. vii. 197. If they escape a total Assimulation to the Country where they thus are mingled.
1794. Sullivan, View Nat., II. 75. In assimilation with all, M. Macquer thinks that [etc.].
3. The action of likening, comparison.
1855. H. Spencer, Psychol., I. II. viii. 267. Knowing a feeling is the assimilation of it to past kindred exactly like it.
4. Conversion into a similar substance; esp. the process whereby an animal or plant converts extraneous material into fluids and tissues identical with its own; absorption of nutriment into the system. (By some physiologists restricted to the final stage of this conversion, which takes place after the absorption of digested fluids by the lymphatics and blood-vessels.)
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 877. Frictions … make better Passages for the Spirits, Bloud, and Aliments … All which help Assimulation.
1727–51. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., Assimilation we see in flame, which converts … fuel into its own firy and luminous nature.
1836. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., 144/1. Assimilation … is the ultimate term of nutrition.
1880. Gray, Bot. Text Bk., iii. § 4. 85. Vegetable assimilation … being the conversion of inorganic into organic matter, takes place in all ordinary vegetation only in green parts.
b. fig.
1790. Burke, Fr. Rev., 114. Which, by a bland assimilation, incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society.
1871. Freeman, Hist. Ess., Ser. I. i. 36. The first Teutonic settlement involved, whether by extirpation or assimilation, the … driving out of the earlier British.
† 5. Path. The supposed conversion of the fluids of the body to the nature of any morbific matter. Obs.
1864. Webster cites Parr.
1881. Syd. Soc. Lex., Assimilation destructive, a term formerly used to express what is known now as Metabolism.
