Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Connection of links; union of parts, as in a chain; regular connection; concatenation.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Connection of links or union of parts, as in a chain; a regular or connected series. See concatenation.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The act or process of catenating.
  • noun chemistry The ability of a few elements, most especially carbon, to yield chains and rings by forming covalent bonds with atoms of the same element.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • This accumulation nevertheless is not so great as to renew their own activity under this defect of stimulus, but yet is in sufficient abundance to increase the associability of the next link of catenation, that is, to actuate the capillaries of the skin with great and perpetual increase of energy.

    Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • In that case the link in catenation, that is, the first of the associate train, is rendered torpid by defect of excitement of its usual quantity of the sensorial power of association, and from there being no accumulation of the sensorial power of irritation to increase its associability, and thus to contribute to actuate it by overbalancing the defect of the excitement of its association.

    Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • This inherent ability of hydrocarbons to bond to themselves is referred to as catenation, the physic-chemical scenario behind this transport behavior.

    PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories 2009

  • Invention is an operation of the sensorium, by which we voluntarily continue to excite one train of ideas, suppose the design of raising water by a machine; and at the same time attend to all other ideas, which are connected with this by every kind of catenation; and combine or separate them voluntarily for the purpose of obtaining some end.

    Zoonomia, Vol. I Or, the Laws of Organic Life Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • The transport in the trail is a kind of catenation, the ability of a chemical element to form a long chain-like structure via a series of covalent bonds.

    PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories 2009

  • The time had come when a book of that kind was desirable and perhaps, subconsciously had been waited for, particularly by the women of the war generation and at the moment owed to the catenation of events which had nothing to do with the 'author and had nothing to do with its appearance.

    A Personal Confession of Faith 1934

  • The whole catenation in proper sequence presented itself in one all-embracing vision -- a scene painted on canvas, rather than the logical continuity of a screen picture.

    Prairie Flowers 1921

  • I say there's a con-catenation of beauty now here this afternoon.

    Say and Seal, Volume I Susan Warner 1852

  • When fibrous contractions succeed or accompany other fibrous contractions, the connexion is termed association; when fibrous contractions succeed sensorial motions, the connexion is termed causation; when fibrous and sensorial motions reciprocally introduce each other, it is termed catenation of animal motions.

    Note II 1803

  • Now by frequent repetition the surprise, incongruity, or novelty ceases; and, in consequence, the pleasure or pain which accompanied it, and also the degree of volition which was excited by that sensation of pain or pleasure; and thus the sensorial power of sensation and of volition are subducted from the catenation of vital actions, and they are in consequence produced much weaker, and at length cease entirely.

    Note VII 1803

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