stellation
(stɛˈleɪʃən)
[Noun of action f. L. stellāre to diversify with stars, to place among the stars, etc., f. stella star: see -ation.]
† 1. Blighting or blasting of trees (attributed to starry influence): = sideration 1. Obs.—0
| 1623 [see sideration 1]. 1656 Blount Glossogr., Stellation, a blasting. |
† 2. ? = constellation. Obs. rare—1.
| a 1629 T. Adams Serm. Wks. 158 Some haue thought that these Magi, hauing so profound skill in Astrologie, might by calculation of times, composition of Starres, and Stellations of the Heauens, foreknow the birth of the Messias. |
† 3. Placing among the stars; stellification. Obs.
| 1635 Heywood Hierarchy iii. 138 The cause of it's [sc. the Scorpion's] stellation to enquire,..Comes next in course. |
† 4. (See quot. 1661.) Obs.—0
| 1661 Blount Glossogr. (ed. 2), Stellation, a making star⁓like, or adorning with stars. 1721 Bailey, Stellation, an Adorning with Stars. |
† 5. (See quot.) Obs.—0
| 1755 Johnson Stellation, emission of light as from a star. |
6. Each of the ‘stars’ composing a stellate tissue.
| 1859 Tomes Dental Surg. 44 Below the epithelium comes a thick layer of stellate areolar tissue... Nuclei are present in the centres of the stellations. |
7. The making or being stellate.
| 1859 Cayley Math. Papers (1891) IV. 83 On account of the stellation é = 2. 1938 H. S. M. Coxeter et al. Fifty-Nine Icosahedra i. 1 We enumerate and describe the polyhedra that can be five Platonic solids by stellation, i.e., by extending or ‘producing’ the faces until they meet again, always preserving the rotational symmetry of the original solid. 1948 ― Regular Polytopes xiv. 264 The first stellation of {ob}5, 3, 3{cb} is constructed by stellating the 720 pentagons into {ob}5/2{cb}'s, and the 120 dodecahedra into {ob}5/2, 5{cb}'s. The result is {ob}5/2, 5, 3{cb}. 1971 Sci. Amer. Dec. 114/2 The five Platonic solids are complete of their symmetrical kind. By mixing regular polygon faces, however, Archimedes made 13 more solids. These can be variously extended by putting cells on faces, called stellation, or by cutting away cells whenever that process can reveal new regular polygon faces within. |