[ad. L. conjugātiōn-em yoking together, connection, mingling, coupling of sexes, etymological relationship between words, n. of action from conjugāre to CONJUGATE. Cf. F. conjugaison (in 16th c. also conjugation).]
1. The action of joining together or uniting; the condition of being joined together; conjunction, union, combination.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., II. xxi. § 6. The doctrine of Conjugation of men in Socyety. Ibid. (1626), Sylva, § 103. In the Conjugation of Letters, whence Articulate Sounds proceed.
1660. Jer. Taylor, Worthy Commun., I. iv. 74. The worthy receiving of the holy communion, is but one conjugation of holy actions and parts of repentance.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., 47. They are neither contained in those things before mentioned, nor can result from any συζυγίαι or Conjugations of them.
1824. C. Wordsworth, Who wrote ΕΙΚΩΝ ΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΗ? 151. There is a total absence of evidence, whether external or internal, of any thing like a conjugation of labours, a joint authorship in the performance.
† b. A conjunction, combination, assemblage, united series. Obs.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 835. The Elements, and their Conjugations.
1660. Jer. Taylor, Duct. Dubit., I. ii. It supposes daily heaps and conjugations of miracles.
1674. Grew, Anat. Plants, III. I. i. § 9. Some Parcels or Conjugations, in the figure of little Specks.
1692. Bentley, Boyle Lect., ii. 50. All the various mixtures and conjugations of atoms.
1718. Hickes & Nelson, J. Kettlewell, II. § 69. These were a Conjugation of probabilities.
c. Union in wedlock. (humorous.)
c. 1783. Cowper, Pairing-time, 41. Dick heard: and tweedling, ogling, bridling … Attested, glad, his approbation Of an immediate conjugation.
† 2. Connection, relation, relationship. Obs.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., II. i. § 5. The simple Conjugations of man and wife, parent and child, master and servant, which are in every cottage. Ibid., II. xv. § 1. For the art of characters … it hath nearest conjugation with grammar.
† b. The relation of words directly derived from the same root: see CONJUGATE a. 2. Obs. [L. conjugātio.]
1628. T. Spencer, Logick, 141. All those that are of the same roote, Case, Coniugation, or ranke: as Iustice, Iust, Iustly, Strength, Strong, Strongly.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Conjugation, a joyning together, a derivation of words of one kind.
3. Grammar. a. A connected scheme of all the inflexional forms belonging to a verb; a division of the verbs of any language according to the general differences of inflexion.
A table of the series of ‘conjugate’ forms of a verb was called by the Greeks συζυγία, and this was in Commianus and Charisius, Latin grammarians of the 4th c., rendered by the corresponding L. term conjugatio. The former says ‘conjugationes quas Græci συζυγίας appellant, sunt apud nos tres’; the latter reckons 4, as in subsequent Lat. grammars. (Charisius, Inst. Gramm., ed. Keil, 168, 175.)
c. 1528. Skelton, Sp. Parrot (R.). Can skantly the tensis of his conjugations.
1570. Levins, Manip., Pref. 5. To know the coniugations: we haue set ouer (e) the infinitiue moode of the seconde coniugations, this circumflex (ê) as docêre, [etc.].
1580. Hollyband, Treas. Fr. Tong., Introd. The examples of all the Coniugations declyned at length through all moods and tenses.
1612. Brinsley, Lud. Lit., vi. 61. They will by this meanes goe through all the coniugations.
1872. R. Morris, Hist. Outlines (1879), 168. The verbs of the strong conjugation … form the past tense by a change of the root-vowel.
b. The setting forth (in speech or writing) of the various inflected forms of a verb, or of one of its moods, tenses, etc.; verbal inflexion.
1530. Palsgr., Introd., 31. Conjugation is the dyvers alteryng of the last ende of a theme, by reason of these thre accidentes, mode, tens and declination personall.
1591. Percivall, Sp. Dict., C j b. A Coniugation is the course of declining a verbe, by mood and tense.
1824. L. Murray, Eng. Gram. (ed. 5), I. 131. The Conjugation of a verb, is the regular combination and arrangement of its several numbers, persons, moods, and tenses.
1883. J. Parker, Tyne Ch., 290. Faith … is not a transient mood in the conjugation of life’s throbbing verb.
c. In the Semitic langs., the name given to the simple form, and to each of the derivative forms that express a modification of meaning such as is expressed in Aryan languages by derivative verbs and by the distinction of voice. Each of these has its full inflexion for tense and person.
In Hebrew, the conjugations normally belonging to a verb are seven, expressing 1. Simple Active, 2. Passive, 3. an Emphatic derivative, 4. its Passive, 5. Causal derivative, 6. its Passive, 7. a Reflexive voice.
[c. 1500. Zamorra, Introd. art. gram. hebr. (in Bibl. Complutens), fol. vi. a. 1 Conjugationes verborum quatuor sunt.]
1593. J. Udall, Key Holy Tongue, I. x. 45. Everie of these several verbs are declined thorow divers conjugations. The conjugation of a verb is either Levis or gravis.
1854. Arabic Reading Lessons (Bagster), p. xv. There are thirteen forms or species of conjugation (most of them having their passives), and every verb may be inflected according to one or more of them.
1859. Nicholls, Samaritan Gram. (Bagster), 31. A Paradigm of a regular verb through its different conjugations.
† 4. Phys. Each pair of the cerebral nerves. Obs.
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, 701. The Auditory nerue, or the Nerue of the fifte Coniugation and that of the seauenth which mooueth the Tongue.
1696. J. Edwards, Demonstr. Exist. God, II. 76. There are seven pairs or conjugations of them [nerves] for that use.
1713. Derham, Phys. Theol., V. viii. 345. This Fifth Conjugation of Nerves is branched to the Ball, the Muscles and Glands of the Eye.
b. A group of conjoined parts. Obs.
1578. Banister, Hist. Man, VIII. 111. The coniugations produced from Os sacrum … may be called … the sinewes of the feete.
1677. Plot, Oxfordsh., 87. Dividing the whole body as it were into certain conjugations, of two, three, or more joynts.
5. Biol. The union or fusion of two (apparently) similar cells for reproduction, occurring in certain plants and animals of lowly organization.
1843. trans. Müller’s Phys., II. 1505. The process of Conjugation was first observed by O.Fr. Müller in the Conferyæ.
1857. Berkeley, Cryptog. Bot., 126. The process of conjugation … The two frustules being brought near to each other by their concave surfaces, two little swellings arise in each, meeting two similar ones in the opposite frustule.
1859. Todd, Cycl. Anat., V. 9/1. The combination of the contents of two cells … as in the process of conjugation.
1876. Darwin, Cross & Self Fertil., 409. The conjugation of the Algæ and some of the simplest animals is the first step towards sexual reproduction.
b. attrib., as in conjugation-body, -cell, -nucleus.
