Also 4 elongacioun. [ad. late L. ēlongātiōn-em, n. of action f. ēlongāre: see ELONGATE.]
1. Astr. The angular distance of a heavenly body from some relatively fixed point; in mod. usage, the angular distance of a planet from the sun, or of a satellite from its primary.
c. 1391. Chaucer, Astrol., II. § 25. Take the heiest altitude … of any sterre fix … & tak his nethere elongacioun.
1540[?]. Dyfference of Astron., A ii b. Of sygnes, and of theyr elongacyons.
1647. Lilly, Chr. Astrol., iii. 31. ☿ is in his greatest elongation or distance from the ☉.
1662. Fuller, Worthies, II. 237. The star Venus was visible all day long, as sometime it falls out neer her greatest Elongation.
1841. Brewster, Mart. Sci., iii. (1856), 35. We saw her [Venus] in the form of a crescent, resembling exactly the moon at the same elongation.
1868. Lockyer, Guillemin’s Heavens (ed. 3), 76. In the morning … its maximum western elongation attains the same value.
† b. The difference in motion between the swifter and the slower of two planets, or the quantity of space whereby the one has overgone the other.
1727–51. in Chambers.
† c. The difference between the true place and the geocentric place of a planet. Obs.
1796. in Hutton.
† 2. Removal to a distance, departure, recession; hence, remoteness; also fig. Obs.
1616. Bullokar, Elongation, a putting far off.
1639. J. Symonds, in Spurgeon, Treas. Dav., Ps. xxxviii. 9. Ofttimes there is a frustration of our desires, or an elongation of the things.
1654. trans. Scudery’s Curia Politiæ, 76. Those who designed his elongation and farther remove from Court.
1661. Hickeringill, Jamaica, 5. That vulgar errour, that it’s [the Sun’s] elongation [is] the reason of extreamity of cold.
1672. Phil. Trans., VII. 5126. The Dis-appearance of those Stars may be ascribed to their Elongation from … our Eyes.
1694. R. Burthogge, Essay on Reason, 140. In its utmost Elongation or Removal from him.
† b. Astron. The removal of a planet to its furthest distance from the sun; aphelion.
1715. in Kersey.
1721–1800. in Bailey.
1787. Smeaton, in Phil. Trans., LXXVII. 319. The same disappointment … with respect to the approaching elongation in September.
3. The action or process of elongating, lengthening out, or extending.
1731. Arbuthnot, Aliments, 42. This Motion of Elongation of the Fibres.
1793. T. Beddoes, Math. Evid., 142. What overturns this whole system of analogical elongation … is a discovery … to which Lennep contributed an hint.
1828. Steuart, Planter’s G., 277. This decided tendency to elongation of the boughs on the lee-side.
1831. Brewster, Nat. Magic, iv. (1833), 80. The figure will undergo most curious elongations and contractions.
1878. L. P. Meredith, Teeth, 47. There is also an elongation of the anterior portion of the jaws.
† 4. Surgery. a. ‘An imperfect luxation, when the ligaments are only relaxed and lengthened, but the bone is not out of place’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.).
1676. Wiseman, Surg., 480. Those Elongations which are the effect of an Humour soaking upon a Ligament … making it liable to be stretcht.
1715. in Kersey.
1847. in Craig.
b. ‘The extension of a limb for the purpose of reducing a dislocation or setting fractured bones’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.).
1847. in Craig.
5. The state of being elongated or lengthened. concr. That which is elongated; an extended space, a continuation, a part produced.
1751. R. Cambridge, Scribbleriad, III. 83, note. His skin was … grown over with an horny excrescence called by the Naturalists the Elongation of the papillæ.
1796. H. Hunter, trans. St.-Pierre’s Stud. Nat. (1799), III. 29. To prove the truth of my theory respecting their [the poles’] elongation.
1797. M. Baillie, Morb. Anat. (1807), 299. If these elongations were to be situated at a distance from the neck of the bladder.
1813. H. & J. Smith, Rej. Addr., 61. But when on this boarded elongation it falls to my lot to say a good thing.
1837. Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sc. (1857), II. 282. The elongation of the image.
1869. J. Martineau, Ess., II. 76. His morality is … a mere elongation of law.
