VISITATION • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Visitation

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/vˌɪzətˈeɪʃən/ /vˌɪzɪtˈeɪʃən/ Listen

noun

Visitation n.

1.

The act of visiting, or the state of being visited; access for inspection or examination. "Nothing but peace and gentle visitation."

2.

Specifically: The act of a superior or superintending officer who, in the discharge of his office, visits a corporation, college, etc., to examine into the manner in which it is conducted, and see that its laws and regulations are duly observed and executed; as, the visitation of a diocese by a bishop.

3.

The object of a visit. (Obs.) "O flowers,... my early visitation and my last."

4.

(Internat. Law) The act of a naval commander who visits, or enters on board, a vessel belonging to another nation, for the purpose of ascertaining her character and object, but without claiming or exercising a right of searching the vessel. It is, however, usually coupled with the right of search (see under Search), visitation being used for the purpose of search.

5.

Special dispensation; communication of divine favor and goodness, or, more usually, of divine wrath and vengeance; retributive calamity; retribution; judgment. "What will ye do in the day of visitation?"

6.

(Eccl.) A festival in honor of the visit of the Virgin Mary to Elisabeth, mother of John the Baptist, celebrated on the second of July.

The Order of the Visitation of Our Lady (R. C. Ch.), a religious community of nuns, founded at Annecy, in Savoy, in 1610, and in 1808 established in the United States. In America these nuns are devoted to the education of girls.

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Etymology of 'Visitation'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Visitation" Quotes from Famous Books

... return to the story. The people understood this awful visitation to be the judgment of heaven against Laocoon for his sacrilegious presumption in daring to thrust his spear into the side of the image before them, and which they were now very sure they were to consider as something supernatural and divine. They determined with ...

— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... no family; woman is merely the temporary companion of his pleasures, and his children are upon an equality with himself from the moment of their birth. Am I to call it a proof of God's mercy or a visitation of his wrath, that man in certain states appears to be insensible to his extreme wretchedness, and almost affects, with a depraved taste, the cause of his misfortunes? The negro, who is plunged in this ...

— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... fulness and brilliancy it has in these southern latitudes, that it was as much as I could do to keep from bursting out laughing and so betraying my presence in the top above his head. I was all the more amused, too, when "Old Jock" turned to the second mate and added: "I look upon this as a visitation, and am glad I never killed the animals; for I would not touch one now for anything! Have the remaining brute chucked overboard, Saunders; it would be unlucky to keep it after what has happened. I'm sure I could not bear the sight of it or to ...

— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... be a correct, able preacher of the gospel, and an efficient fisher of men. Having thoroughly prepared himself for his work by courses in Northwestern University and Garrett Biblical Institute, by travel in the South and West of our own country, and by a visitation of the Old World, he has served on the rugged frontier of his Conference, and among foreign populations grappling successfully with some of the most difficult ...

— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy

... peculiar circumstances. Thus when an epidemic (such as cholera, small pox and now probably plague) breaks out in a village in Bengal all the principal residents of the place in order to propitiate the deity to whose curse or ire the visitation is supposed to be due, raise a sufficient amount by subscription for worshipping the irate Goddess. The black he-goat that is offered as a sacrifice on such an occasion is not actually slain, but being besmeared with "Sindur" (red oxide of ...

— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji

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