[? ad. med.L. *amalgamāt-us, pa. pple. of amalgamā-re, f. amalgama: see AMALGAM sb. Used also as pa. pple. of AMALGAMATE v.]
1. Combined or alloyed. (Said of mercury and another metal.)
1642–7. H. More, Poems, 262. Nimble quicksilver that doth agree with gold … or with what ere it be Amalgamate.
2. Combined, coalesced; spec. of languages (see quot. 1862).
1849–52. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., IV. 1346/2. The Amalgamate type, of which the classical languages are the most perfect example.
1850. Mrs. Browning, Gerald. Courtsh., lxviii. 3. I felt self-drawn out, as man, From amalgamate false natures.
1862. Spencer, First Princ. (1870), 321. Out of these [agglutinate languages] by further use, arose the ‘amalgamate’ languages, or those in which the original separateness of the inflexional parts can no longer be traced.
