[ad. L. trepidātiōn-em, n. of action fr. trepidāre: see prec. Cf. F. trépidation (15th c.).]
1. Tremulous agitation; confused hurry or alarm; confusion; furry; perturbation.
1607–12. Bacon, Ess. Of Seditions & Troub. (Arb.), 414. There vseth to be more trepidacion in Courtes vponn the breaking out of troubles then were fitt.
a. 1639. Wotton, Election Dk. Venice, in Reliq. (1651), 176. The success of that great day, in such trepidation of the State made every man meritorious.
1780. Johnson, Lett. to Mrs. Thrale, 9 June. They did their work at leisure … without trepidation, as men lawfully employed.
1796. Mme. D’Arblay, Camilla, I. 323. Miss Margland … in equal trepidation from anger and from fear.
1879. M. Arnold, Mixed Ess., Geo. Sand, 318. I found a large party assembled. I entered with some trepidation.
2. Tremulous, vibratory, or reciprocating movement; vibration; oscillation, rocking; an instance of this; also, involuntary trembling of the limbs, as in paralytic affections; tremor.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., II. ii. § 8. Massiue bodies … haue certaine trepidations and wauerings, before they fixe and settle.
1696. J. Edwards, Demonstr. Exist. & Provid. God, I. p. xii. Earth-quakes and trepidations of the earth.
1750. Johnson, Rambler, No. 1, ¶ 13. My impatience … will not suffer me to attend any longer the trepidations of the balance.
1822–34. Good’s Study Med. (ed. 4), III. 227. A considerable degree of trepidation reached occasionally to her finger’s end.
1837. Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sc. (1857), II. 240. The trepidation of the body struck perpetually generates a new sound.
1899. Syd. Soc. Lex., Trepidation, a rhythmic movement of the foot in certain forms of paraplegia and in epilepsy.
3. Astron. A libration of the eighth (or ninth) sphere, added to the system of Ptolemy by the Arab astronomer Thabet ben Korrah, c. 950, in order to account for certain phenomena, esp. precession, really due to motion of the earth’s axis.
a. 1631. Donne, Valedict., Poems (1633), 193. Moving of th’ earth brings harmes and feares, Men reckon what it did and meant, But trepidation of the spheares, Though greater farre, is innocent.
1653. [see TREPIDATE v.].
1667. Milton, P. L., III. 483. They pass the Planets seven, and pass the fixt, And that Crystalline Sphear whose ballance weighs The Trepidation talkt, and that first mov’d.
1670. Eachard, Cont. Clergy, 52. Up presently to the primum-mobile, and the trepidation of the firmament.
1834. Penny Cycl., II. 532/2. Thabet ben Korrah … about A.D. 950 … revived an old notion … (not mentioned by Ptolemy, but by Theon [A.D. 385]) of a variation in the position of the ecliptic, which has been called a trepidation.
