inosculate

From in- +‎ osculate, from Latin ōsculātus (“kiss”), from ōs + -culus (“little mouth”).

• IPA^(key): /ɪˈnɒs.kjʊˌleɪt/

inosculate (third-person singular simple present inosculates, present participle inosculating, simple past and past participle inosculated)

1. (transitive) To homogenize; to make continuous.

   Synonyms: blend; see also Thesaurus:homogenize

2. (intransitive) To open into.
   • 1826 November 1, “Survey of the River Sanloon”, in The Asiatic Journal, volume 22, number 131, page 550:

     The party left the town of Martaban on the 20th March; they passed two grassy and level islands just above the junction of the Gyein river with the main one. […] This inosculating river is about half the breadth of the Sanloon.

3. (transitive) To unite.

   Synonyms: affix, attach, join, put together; see also Thesaurus:join

   • 1834, Harvey, George, “On Clouds”, in A Treatise on Meteorology, page 161:

     Clouds sometimes inosculate with smoke. Howard mentions several cases in his Journals. "The smoke of London," he observes, "when passing away in a body swelled up into distinct heaps, each of which inosculated at its summit with a small Cloud. Groups of Cumulo Stratus, the Cumulus and Cirro Stratus occupied the South part of the sky attracting smoke."

4. (intransitive) To intercommunicate; to interjoin.
   • 1852, De Quincey, Thomas, “Sir William Hamilton”, in Hogg's Weekly Instructor, volume 8, Edinburgh: James Hogg, page 404; reprinted in The Collected Writings Of Thomas De Quincey, volume 5, London: A & C Black, 1897, page 316:

     But that, alas! is impossible. Hearken to the nature of the fix in which I find myself, and say if you ever heard of a worse. Under ordinary circumstances, if one outruns the usual allowance of space, one has but to say at the foot of the paper, To be continued, and all is healed. Any paper may be adjourned from month to month,—true, but not from volume to volume; and, unhappily for me, this very week's number, in which I am now writing, closes a volume. The several monthly divisions of the journal may inosculate, but not the several volumes.

inosculate (uncountable)

1. The act of inosculating.

• inosculation

• inoculates, notaulices