visitation

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act or an instance of visiting or an instance of being visited: rules governing visitation at a prison.
2. n. An official visit for the purpose of inspection or examination, as of a bishop to a diocese.
3. n. The right of a parent to visit a child as specified in a divorce or separation order.
4. n. A visit of punishment or affliction or of comfort and blessing regarded as being ordained by God.
5. n. A calamitous event or experience; a grave misfortune.
6. n. The appearance or arrival of a supernatural being.
7. n. Roman Catholic Church The visit of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth.
8. n. Roman Catholic Church May 31, observed in commemoration of this event.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of visiting, or paying a visit; a visit.
2. n. The object of a visit.
3. n. A formal or judicial visit paid periodically by a superior, superintending officer, or other competent authority, to a corporation, college, church, or other house, for the purpose of examining into the manner in which the business of the body is conducted, and its laws and regulations are observed and executed, or the like; specifically (ecclesiastical), such examination by a bishop of the churches in his diocese,with the added purpose of administering coufirmation. The right of visitation attaches to metropolitans in their provinces, to bishops in their dioceses, and to archedeacons: in certain cases.
4. n. A special dispensation from heaven sometimes of divine favor, more usually of divine retribution; divine retributive affliction;hence a similar incident of less importance, whether joyful or grievous.
5. n. In international law, the act of a naval commander who visits or boards a vessel belonging to another state for the purpose of ascetaining her character and object. it does not include the claim or exercise of the right of search. The right of performing this act is called the right of visit or of visitation.
6. n. [capitalized] A church festival in honor of the visit of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth (Luke i. 39), celebrated on July 2d in the Roman Catholic, Greek, and other churches.
7. n. In zoology, an extensive, irregular, or otherwise notable migration into a place or country; an irruption, incursion, or invasion: as,a visitation of lemmings, of the Bohemian waxwing southward, or of the sand-grouse from Asia into France or England.
8. n. In her., an investigation by a high heraldic officer, usually one of the kings-at-arms, into the pedigrees, intermarriages, etc., of a family or the families of a district, with a view of ascertaining whether the arms borne by any person or persons living in that district are incorrect or unwarrantably assumed. The king-at-arms was accompanied on such occasions by secretaries, draftsmen, etc. The latest visitation on record in England seems to have been between the years 1686 and 1700; but before that time they had ceased to be regularly held.

Wiktionary

1. n. The act of visiting, or an instance of being visited.
2. n. An official visit to inspect or examine something.
3. n. An encounter with supernatural beings such as ghosts or aliens.
4. n. The right of a separated or divorced parent to visit a child; access.
5. n. A punishment or blessing ordained by God.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act of visiting, or the state of being visited; access for inspection or examination.
2. n. Specifically: The act of a superior or superintending officer who, in the discharge of his office, visits a corporation, college, etc., to examine into the manner in which it is conducted, and see that its laws and regulations are duly observed and executed.
3. n. obsolete The object of a visit.
4. n. (Internat. Law) The act of a naval commander who visits, or enters on board, a vessel belonging to another nation, for the purpose of ascertaining her character and object, but without claiming or exercising a right of searching the vessel. It is, however, usually coupled with the right of search (see under Search), visitation being used for the purpose of search.
5. n. Special dispensation; communication of divine favor and goodness, or, more usually, of divine wrath and vengeance; retributive calamity; retribution; judgment.
6. n. (Eccl.) A festival in honor of the visit of the Virgin Mary to Elisabeth, mother of John the Baptist, celebrated on the second of July.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an annoying or frustrating or catastrophic event
2. n. any disaster or catastrophe
3. n. an official visit for inspection or supervision