[ad. med.L. alimentātiōn-em, n. of action f. alimentā-re: see ALIMENT v.]
1. The action or process of affording aliment; nourishment, nutrition.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Alimentation, nourishment, or that causeth or breeds nourishment.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Alimentation is used, by some naturalists, for what we more ordinarily call nutrition.
1849–52. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., IV. 1203/2. The tentacula of the Bryozoa … are subservient to the purposes of alimentation.
1872. Huxley, Physiol., i. 15. The organs which convert food into nutriment are the organs of alimentation.
2. The process of being nourished, the mode in which any one is nourished.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn. (1640), 170. A man that … hath thoroughly observed the nature of Assimilation and of Alimentation. Ibid. (1626), Sylva, § 602. Plants do nourish: inanimate bodies do not; they have an Accretion, but no Alimentation.
1830. Lyell, Princ. Geol. (1875), II. III. xliii. 477. That climate … social condition, alimentation, and mode of life may have determined originally the diversity of races.
3. The supplying with the necessaries of life; maintenance, support.
1590. Swinburn, Testaments, 201. As if he did bequeath it vnto hir for hir alimentation.
1850. Merivale, Rom. Emp. (1865), VIII. lxvi. 193. The alimentation of poor children … was extended or increased by fresh endowments.
