▪ I. seasoning, vbl. n.
(ˈsiːz(ə)nɪŋ)
[-ing1.]
1. The action of the verb season. † a. The act or time of impregnation. Obs.
| 1511 MS. Acc. St. John's Hosp., Canterb., Payd for sesnyng of iij sowys jd. ob. 1538 Elyot Dict., Admissura, the acte or tyme whan beastes doth their kinde in generation. Seasoning. 1601 Holland Pliny xvi. xxv. I. 471 This time, our rusticall peasants call the Seasoning, when as Nature..is in the rut and furious rage of love. |
b. The imparting of a flavour to a dish.
| 1601 R. Johnson Kingd. & Commw. (1603) 136 The nobility is very gallant,..spending more then their reuenues in diet and apparell, and the seasoning of their meates. 1732 Arbuthnot Aliments, Rules of Diet 260 Vegetables used in Seasoning, as Thyme, Savory. 1790 Burke Fr. Rev. Wks. 1808 V. 261 To stimulate their cannibal appetites by variety and seasoning. |
c. The maturing of wood by drying, etc.;
† also, tempering, hardening (of metals).
| 1641 Best Farm. Bks. (Surtees) 112 Firre-deales are accounted better for bordeninge with then oake that hath not had time for seasoninge. 1730 Savery Magnet. Observ. in Phil. Trans. XXXVI. 330, I imagine it must be owing to some..Difference in seasoning, it being almost impossible to make both Ends equally hard. 1859 Burton in Jrnl. Geog. Soc. XXIX. 136 The rafters also are favourite places for small articles that require seasoning. |
d. The process by which a person becomes hardened or inured to a strange climate, acclimatization.
| 1807 Salmagundi 16 May 198 Strangers always..undergo a seasoning as europeans do in the West-Indies. 1812 Brackenridge Views Louisiana (1814) 111 It is a prevailing notion, that to be sick the first summer, is what every settler must expect... In some parts of the territory..this seasoning is severely paid. a 1859 Macaulay Hist. Eng. xxix. V. 229 This was merely the seasoning which people who passed from one country to another must expect. 1897 Daily News 30 Mar. 6/5 Anglo-Saxons who have had no tropical seasoning. |
e. Hence, an attack, more or less severe, of ague or some kindred disease suffered by those who take up their abode for the first time in a tropical district.
| 1670 D. Denton Descr. New York (1845) 18 The Climate hath such an affinity with that of England, that..the name of seasoning..hath never there been known. 1774 Wesley Wks. (1872) XI. 67 About a fourth part more [of the slaves] die at the different islands, in what is called the seasoning. 1822–29 Good's Study Med. (ed. 3) II. 176 Its more common name, however, in the present day..is yellow fever; and when the attack upon new comers is slight, seasoning. |
| fig. 1641 Hinde J. Bruen xxxi. 99 His desires and endeavours, for the seasoning of others, both persons and families, with the salt of true religion. 1910 Q. Rev. Jan. 223 The best of things are the better for liberal seasonings of laughter. |
† f. Training, discipline.
Obs.| 1649 Jer. Taylor Gt. Exemp. i. Disc. i. 38 It concerns the Parents care, in order to a vertuous and vitious life of the childe, to secure its first seasonings. |
g. The process whereby a transported slave becomes inured to the conditions of slavery.
Obs. exc. Hist.| 1771 A. Benezit Some Hist. Acct. Guinea xiii. 130 At a moderate computation of the slaves who are purchased by our African merchants in a year, near thirty thousand die upon the voyage and in the seasoning. 1786 T. Clarkson Ess. Slavery & Commerce Human Species iii. iv. 139 This seasoning is said to expire, when the two first years of their servitude are completed; It is the time which an African must take to be so accustomed to the colony, as to be able to endure the common labour of a plantation, and to be put into the gang. 1804 R. Bisset Defence of Slave Trade 88 Instead of thirty-three in the hundred dying, as asserted by the author of the ‘Concise Statement’, not three in the hundred die of the seasoning. 1977 Time 7 Feb. 59/3 The passage took longer, with ‘seasoning’ camps at the beginning, usually on an island off the African coast. |
h. The application of one of various finishes to leather after tanning.
| 1897 C. T. Davis Manuf. Leather (ed. 2) 358 A seasoning mixture is applied to the surface after tanning and before coloring. 1974 Encycl. Brit. Macropædia X. 763/2 In unpigmented seasoning [of leather], a simple glazing finish or seasoning may contain egg albumin, water, and gylcerin. |
2. concr. Something added to a dish which gives it a distinctive or appetizing flavour.
| 1580 Hollyband Treas. Fr. Tong, Assaissonnement, a seasoning. 1693 Locke Educ. §14. 13 Our Palates like the Seasoning and Cookery they are set to. 1769 Mrs. Raffald Eng. Housekpr. (1778) 47 Rub them well with your seasoning. 1837 Dickens Pickw. xxxi, Nice seasonin' for sassages, is trousers' buttons, Ma'am. 1861 Hulme tr. Moquin-Tandon ii. iii. 175 It is necessary to prepare them [snails] with strong seasonings—as with plenty of ham, anchovies [etc.]. |
| fig. 1819 Scott Ivanhoe iii, His favourite clown..whose jests..served for a sort of seasoning to his evening meal. |
3. attrib. and
Comb.:
† seasoning disease,
† distemper,
† fever = sense 1 e;
seasoning room, a store-room where tobacco is kept until matured.
| 1802 Engl. Encycl. IX. 293/1 All *seasoning diseases are of the inflammatory kind. |
| 1701 C. Wolley Jrnl. in New York (1860) 25 It does not welcome its Guests and Strangers with the *seasoning distempers of Fevers and Fluxes. |
| 1814 W. Brown Pist. Propag. Chr. (1823) I. 627 He was attacked by the *seasoning fever. |
| 1890 Pall Mall Gaz. 5 Aug. 2/1, I..followed the tobacco from its arrival in the bale, through the *seasoning room, to the wetting and sorting tubs. |
▪ II. seasoning, ppl. a. (
ˈsiːz(ə)nɪŋ)
[f. season v. + -ing2.] That seasons, that adds a flavour or relish.
| 1562 J. Heywood Prov. & Epigr. (1867) 183 No seasonyng lyckour, can season it well. 1697 Dryden Virg. Georg. iii. 615 Sparingly they steep [cheese] With seas'ning Salt, and stor'd, for Winter keep. 1760 Woolman Jrnl. vii. Wks. (1775) 125 The Lord..was pleased to favour us with the Seasoning Virtue of Truth. |