Also incasement. [f. ENCASE v. + -MENT.] That which encases; receptacle, covering, sheath.
1741. Monro, Anatomy (ed. 3), 152. I have … described the incasement of the teeth.
1849. Fraser’s Mag., XXXIX. 664. Gorgons and dragons … look grim from out of their stony encasement.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. vi. 56. His [the narwhal’s] process, or ‘horn,’ from the tip to its bony encasement, four feet [in length].
1863. Sala, Capt. Dangerous, III. v. 176. Wedge after wedge [was] driven in between his Legs … and the Iron Incasement.
b. Biol. = EMBOÎTEMENT. (See quot.)
1879. trans. Haeckel’s Evol. Man, I. ii. 36. Encasement … the false idea that the germs of innumerable generations previously formed and encased one in another, existed in every organism.
