Now rare. [ad. late L. līmātiōn-em, used by Cælius Aurelianus, in sense ‘diminishing (of the body),’ n. of action f. līmāre: see prec.] Filing; fig. ‘polishing up.’
1612. Woodall, Surg. Mate, Wks. (1653), 272. Limation proper to Metals … is a preparation with a file, whereby they yeeld dust for divers uses.
1656. in Blount, Glossogr.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Limation … In Surgery, the filing of the Bones, or hard Parts of the Body.
1852. S. R. Maitland, Eight Ess., 197. Two years … during which the new commissioners were employed in the limation of the work [preparation of a book] committed to them.
† b. Astron. Correction of errors in calculation or observation. Obs.
1669. Flamsteed, in Rigaud, Corr. Sci. Men (1841), II. 77. You know how much it may conduce to the limation of astronomy, and the correction of our canons, to have the celestial phænomena accurately observed. Ibid. (1669), in Phil. Trans., IV. 1109. How the Motion of the Moon’s Latitudes, which shall need its limations, is to be reform’d.
