[f. COLONIZE + -ATION.] The action of colonizing or fact of being colonized; establishment of a colony or colonies.
1770. Burke, Pres. Discont., Wks. 1852, III. 113. Our growth by colonization, and by conquest.
1849. Grote, Greece, II. xxii. (ed. 2), III. 465. The stream of Grecian colonisation to the westward … begins from the 11th Olympiad.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), V. 59. Colonization is in some ways easier when the colony is drawn from one country.
b. with of.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N., IV. vii. § 3 init. The discovery and colonisation of America.
1861. Goldw. Smith, Irish Hist., 99. James carried on the colonization of Ireland.
1867. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), I. iv. 191, note. Some real Danish colonization of the peninsula.
c. attrib. Colonization scheme: see next.
1837. Ht. Martineau, Soc. Amer., II. 111. The chief officers of the Colonisation Society. Ibid. The Colonisation scheme … and the abolition scheme.
