[a. F. compilation, ad. L. compīlātiōn-em, n. of action f. compīlāre to COMPILE.]

1

  1.  The action of compiling: see COMPILE v. 1, 2.

2

c. 1430.  Lydg., Bochas, VI. i. (1554), 144 b. I vndertoke The compilacion of this little boke.

3

1598.  Florio, Compilatione, a compilation, a heaping or gathering togither in one.

4

1611.  in Cotgr.

5

1837–9.  Hallam, Hist. Lit. (1847), I. 566. The compilation of theological systems, generally called Loci Communes.

6

1846.  Wright, Ess. Mid. Ages, II. xii. 63. The compilation of the Gesta Romanorum.

7

  2.  concr. That which is compiled; a literary work or the like formed by compilation.

8

1426.  Pol. Poems (1859), II. 133. Filowyng the substaunce Of his writyng and compilacioun.

9

1481.  Caxton, Myrr., I. v. 22. Alle that they fonde and sawe, they sette in compilacions.

10

1759.  Johnson, Idler, No. 85. That all compilations are useless I do not assert.

11

1794.  Sullivan, View Nat., II. 225. The sketch of history … was little more than a brief compilation from foreign memoirs.

12

1844.  Ld. Brougham, Brit. Const., xix. § 1 (1862), 307. The first modern compilation which has any pretensions to the title of a complete digest.

13

  † 3.  Heaping or piling together; accumulation.

14

1598.  [see 1].

15

a. 1728.  Woodward, Fossils (J.). There is in it a small vein filled with spar, probably since the time of the compilation of the mass.

16

  ¶  Cockeram (1623), has ‘Compilation, theft, murder.’

17