[ad. L. stercorātiōn-em, f. stercorāre: see prec. and -ATION. Cf. F. stercoration.]
1. The action or an act of manuring with dung.
1605. Timme, Quersit., II. i. 103. What … maketh the earth fatte … but a certaine stercoration, and spreading of dung and of urine which commeth from cattle?
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 595. The first and most Ordinary Helpe is Stercoration.
1696. Evelyn, Lett. to Wotton, 28 Oct. They tooke great care indeede of their vines and olives, stercorations, ingraftings.
1707. Curios. in Husb. & Gard., 121. A Field might be sown every year; if we restor’d to it by Stercoration, what we take from it in the Harvest.
a. 1849. H. Coleridge, Ess. (1851), II. 23. When there was a god Sterquilinius, an agricultural poet might be allowed to sing of stercoration.
† 2. Dung, manure. Obs.
1694. Motteux, Rabelais, IV. lxvii. Do you call this … Excrement, Stercoration, Sir-reverence, Ordure?
1733. Tull, Horse-Hoeing Husb., vii. (8o ed.), 55. When the Saliva and Ferment of the Stomach have served for Stercoration to it.
† 3. nonce-use. A disgusting utterance. Obs.
1702. C. Mather, Magn. Chr., VII. App. (1852), 652. Another … publickly held forth in one of his late stercorations, that [etc.].
