The Collaborative International Dictionary
Congelation \Con`ge*la"tion\, n. [F. cong['e]lation, L. congelatio.]
-
The act or process of passing, or causing to pass, from a fluid to a solid state, as by the abstraction of heat; the act or process of freezing.
The capillary tubes are obstructed either by outward compression or congelation of the fluid.
--Arbuthnot. The state of being congealed.
-
That which is congealed.
Sugar plums . . . with a multitude of congelations in jellies of various colors.
--Taller.
Wiktionary
n. 1 The act or process of passing, or causing to pass, from a fluid to a solid state, as by the abstraction of heat; the act or process of freezing. 2 The state of being congealed. 3 That which is congealed.
WordNet
n. the process of congealing; solidification by (or as if by) freezing [syn: congealment]
Wikipedia
Congelation is the process by which something congeals, or thickens. This increase in viscosity can be achieved through a reduction in temperature or through chemical reactions. Sometimes the increase in viscosity is great enough to crystallize or solidify the substance in question.
In alchemy, congelation is one of the 12 vital processes for transformation to occur.
Usage examples of "congelation".
But as the congelation of the sea-water produces at least two degrees, I was at last reassured against the dangers of solidification.
But, as the congelation of the sea-water produces at least 2@, I was at least reassured against the dangers of solidification.
The firm conviction of the necessity of a vegetation possessing a character of tropical luxuriance, to support such large animals, and the impossibility of reconciling this with the proximity of perpetual congelation, was one chief cause of the several theories of sudden revolutions of climate, and of overwhelming catastrophes, which were invented to account for their entombment.
It is evident that a rank vegetation, which does not so much require heat as it does protection from intense cold, would approach much nearer to this zone of perpetual congelation under the equable climate of the southern hemisphere, than under the extreme climate of the northern continents.
Once this rainbow disappears by congelation, we have arrived at the white stone.
This defiance of the seasons, forcing Nature to do her work of congelation in the face of her sultriest noon, might well inspire a timid mind with fear lest human art were revolting against the Higher Powers, and raise the same scruples which resisted the use of ether and chloroform in certain contingencies.
There are such sudden congelations in the dreamy state, which a word is sufficient to produce.
Pumblechook might have said, the lap of luxury – being entirely furnished forth from the coffee-house – the circumjacent region of sitting-room was of a comparatively pastureless and shifty character: imposing on the waiter the wandering habits of putting the covers on the floor (where he fell over them), the melted butter in the armchair, the bread on the bookshelves, the cheese in the coalscuttle, and the boiled fowl into my bed in the next room – where I found much of its parsley and butter in a state of congelation when I retired for the night.