embrocation

• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

embrocation (countable and uncountable, plural embrocations)

1. (obsolete) The act of moistening and rubbing a diseased part with spirit, oil, etc.
   • 1634, Philemon Holland (translator), The Historie of the World: commonly called, The Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus, London, Book 26, Chapter 11, p. 260,

     The best cure of those who be in a frensie, is by sleepe: and that may be procured easily by the juice of Peucedanum & vineger together infused vpon the head by way of imbrocation, or by rubbing the same with it:

   • 1684, uncredited translator, Observations on the Mineral Waters of France, made in the Royal Academy of the Sciences by Samuel Du Clos, London: Henry Faithorne and John Kersey, “Advertisements and Corollaries,” p. 121,

     The Observations of the Effects of these Waters on Persons who use them in Drinking, Bathing, Pumping, Washing, Embrocation, &c. are reserv’d for the Physicians, whose Duty it is to know the Particular Constitutions of those Persons, and the State of their Health Declining or Improving.

2. The liquid or lotion with which an affected part is rubbed.
   • 1815, Jane Austen, Emma, Volume 1, Chapter 12,

     “Oh! my dear sir, her throat is so much better that I have hardly any uneasiness about it. Either bathing has been of the greatest service to her, or else it is to be attributed to an excellent embrocation of Mr. Wingfield’s, which we have been applying at times ever since August.”

   • 1983, Jack Vance, Suldrun’s Garden, New York: Berkley, Chapter 25,

     You are hereby notified that my embrocations burn and tingle as if distilled from liquid flame. My medicines taste vilely, of cimiter, dogbane and gall: the body quickly returns to robust health so that it need assimilate no more of my foul concoctions! That is the secret of my success.

   • 2010, “Scrum deal: Warm up for the World Cup with a tour of New Zealand,” Daily Mail, 6 September, 2010,

     Here you can also stick your nose in a box and experience what a rugby changing room smells like—embrocation, I think they mean.

• embrocate

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embrocation f (plural embrocations)

1. embrocation

• “embrocation” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).