coition
(kəʊˈɪʃən)
[ad. L. coitiōn-em going or coming together, n. of action, f. coit-, ppl. stem of co-īre to go together.]
† 1. Going or coming together; meeting; uniting.
| 1541 R. Copland Galyen's Terapeutyke 2 C iij, That whiche letteth the coition and coalescence. 1615 Crooke Body of Man 695 Coition I meane or conjunction of the ayre. 1656 Blount Glossogr., Coition, an assembly, confederacy or commotion. 1691 Sir P. King Worship Prim. Ch. ii. (1712) 12 The tongue..sounds or speaks through the knocking or coition of the Lips. |
† b. ‘A mutual tendency of bodies toward one another, as of the iron and loadstone’ (Bailey).
| 1613 M. Ridley Magn. Bodies 79 Where the coition..is most strong. 1638 Wilkins New World xiv. (1707) 118 Gravity..'Tis such a..mutual desire of union, whereby condensed Bodies..do naturally apply themselves one to another by attraction or coition. 1662 in Phenix II. 514 The Antients knew no more of the Loadstone than its Coition, which they improperly call'd Attraction. |
† c. ‘Conjunction’ of the planets. Obs.
| 1678 Phillips s.v., Coition of the Moon is when the Moon is in the same sign and degree with the Sun. 1761 Sterne Tr. Shandy, Slawkenbergius' Tale, Five planets were in coition all at once with Scorpio. |
2. Sexual conjunction, copulation. [so late L. coitio, class. L. coitus.]
| 1615 Crooke Body of Man 51. 1643 Sir T. Browne Relig. Med. ii. (1656) §9, I could be content..that there were any way to perpetuate the world without this triviall and vulgar way of coition. 1697 Dryden Virg. Georg. iii. 376. 1701 Grew Cosm. Sacr. (J.), He is not made productive of his kind, but by coition with a female. 1826 Kirby & Sp. Entomol. (1828) IV. xlii. 153 Coition and impregnation were not simultaneous. 1876 tr. Wagner's Gen. Pathol. 115. |
b. transf. and fig.
| 1649 Milton Eikon. xi. (1851) 427 To affirme..that the Parlament, which is his Mother, can neither conceive or bring forth any autoritative Act without his Masculine coition. 1654 H. L'Estrange Chas. I (1655) 9. 1674 Petty Dupl. Proportion 131, I might suppose that Atoms are also Male and Female..and that the above-named Byasses are the Points of Coition. |