osculation

From Latin ōsculātiō (“a kissing”), from ōsculor (“I kiss”).^[1] By surface analysis, osculate +‎ -ion.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌɒs.kjʊˈleɪ.ʃən/, /ˌɒs.kjəˈleɪ.ʃən/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌɑs.kjuˈleɪ.ʃən/, /ˌɑs.kjəˈleɪ.ʃən/

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• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

osculation (countable and uncountable, plural osculations)

1. The action of kissing.
2. A kiss.
   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, “A Pedigree and Other Family Matters”, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume I, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849, →OCLC, page 15:

     The Major she held to be a sort of Bayard among Majors: and as for her son Arthur she worshipped that youth with an ardour which the young scapegrace accepted almost as coolly as the statue of the Saint in Saint Peter’s receives the rapturous osculations which the faithful deliver on his toe.

3. A close contact.
4. (mathematics) A contact between curves or surfaces, at which point they have a common tangent.
5. (Vedic arithmetic) The determination of whether a number is divisible by another by means of certain operations on its digits.

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osculation f (plural osculations)

1. osculation

• “osculation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.