revivification

English

Etymology

Originally from Latin revīvificāt- (past participial stem of revīvificō (revivify)) +‎ -ion. In later use, from revivify (see -fication). Compare later revivificate, Latin revīvificātiō (1567 in a British source), and French révivification.[1] By surface analysis, re- (again, anew) +‎ vivification (giving of life).

Noun

revivification (countable and uncountable, plural revivifications)

  1. The act of reviving; restoration of life.
    • 1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 73:
      Fir-cones and snakes from their very forms were emblems of male fertility; snakes, too, from their habit of gliding out of their own skins with renewed brightness and color were suggestive of resurrection and re-vivification; pigs and sows by their exceeding fruitfulness would in their hour of sacrifice remind old mother Earth of what was expected from her!
  2. (chemistry, obsolete) The reduction of a metal from a state of combination to its metallic state.
    • 1643, Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici:
      I have often beheld as a miracle, that artificiall resurrection and revivification of Mercury, how being mortified into a thousand shapes, it assumes again its owne, and returns to its numericall selfe.

References

  1. ^ revivification, n.”, in OED Online , Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.