dissertationn.

1611 J. Speed Hist. Great Brit. ix. xxii. 813/1 As in a certaine dissertation had once with M. Cheeke it appeared.

1623 H. Cockeram Eng. Dict. Dissertation, a disputing on things.

1677 T. Gale Court of Gentiles: Pt. III iii. 27 Paul mentions some who had turned aside..to unprofitable dissertation or disputation.

1709 J. Strype Ann. Reformation xi. 137 [They] altogether refused..to engage in further dissertation with them.

1651 T. Hobbes Philos. Rudim. (title page) A Dissertation concerning Man in his severall habitudes and respects.

1683 J. Dryden Life Plutarch 60 in J. Dryden et al. tr. Plutarch Lives I Observing this, I made a pause in my dissertation.

1729 L. Welsted in A. Pope Dunciad (new ed.) iii. 195 (note) He..compos'd three dissertations a week on all subjects.

1762 H. Walpole Vertue's Anecd. Painting I. vii. 139 Vermander dedicated to Ketel a dissertation on the statues of the ancients.

1841 I. D'Israeli Amenities Lit. II. 393 Warton has expressly written a dissertation on that subject.

1833 Christian Observer Mar. 125 The Bishop's..work..[is] too discursive and dissertational to please the popular taste of this ‘penny-magazine’ age.

1865 Reader No. 113. 234/2 Dissertational, poetic, and rhetorical plays.

1866 Spectator 20 Oct. 1162/2 The dissertational language of so dry a piece of theoretic definition as the creed called the Athanasian.

1844 T. De Quincey Logic Polit. Econ. i. 36 This remark was leveled by the dissertationist..(I believe) at Ricardo.

1873 Catal. Officers & Students 1873–4 (Columbia College, N.Y.) 114 Graduates of the School who pursue for one year a course of study prescribed by the Faculty, and present an acceptable dissertation embodying their results, receive the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

1930 J. C. Almack Research & Thesis Writing i. 11 Like thesis, dissertation has come to connote research, but it is a more pedantic term, and usually is reserved strictly for the thesis for the doctorate.

1964 Cal. Univ. Newcastle upon Tyne 1964–5 327 The Final Honours Examination shall consist of nine papers, or eight papers and a dissertation.

1972 A. J. Ayer Russell i. 14 Russell obtained his Fellowship at Trinity with a dissertation on the Foundations of Geometry.

1984 D. Cupitt Sea of Faith v. 142 Marx duly obtained his doctorate, moved to Bonn to work with Bauer, and began to write a qualifying dissertation.