[ad. L. ablātiōn-em a carrying away, n. of action, f. ablāt- ppl. stem of aufer-re: see prec. Cf. Fr. ablation used in sense 2.]
1. The action or process of carrying away or removing; removal.
1577–87. Harrison, England, I. II. i. 37 (1877). The decaies and ablations seene and practised at this present.
1598. Hakluyt, Voyages, I. 148. Marchants haue sustained sundry damages and ablations of their goods.
1677. Gale, Court of Gent., II. IV. 261. Physic mutation is by Addition or Ablation and Substraction of some real Entitie.
1687. H. More, App. to Antidote (1712), 227. In the real ablations of Witches and Magicians, when they happen.
† 2. Med. The removal or subsidence of the acute symptoms of a disease; cessation, remission. Obs.
1651. Noah Biggs, New Dispens., 76. § 120. It doth naturally betoken the ablation of it.
1671. Salmon, Syn. Medic., III. xxxvi. 514. If in the ablation of the disease, there be not a … reparation of the strength, the sick may dye.
1831. Hooper, Med. Dict., 4. Ablation, in some old writings, expresses the interval betwixt two fits of a fever, or the time of remission.
3. Surg. The removing or taking away of any part of the body by mechanical means.
1846. J. Miller, Pract. of Surg., xxvi. 350. There is safety in nothing short of summary ablation—not only of the nipple itself, but of the mamma also.
1872. Cohen, Dis. of the Throat, 207. [He] succeeded in the ablation of one of these polyps by means of a metallic nail attached to a thimble.
4. Geol. The wearing away or superficial waste of a glacier by surface melting, or of a rock by the action of water.
1860. Tyndall, Glaciers, II. § 32. 418. The ablation of the ice must be less than what is generally supposed.
1863. J. Ball, Guide to West. Alps, Introd. 70. The vast amount of ablation, or loss, which a glacier annually undergoes through the melting of the surface.
