obscurationn.

a1550 ( G. Ripley Compend of Alchemy (Bodl. e Mus.) f. 63 Then fourth into the northe proceade by obscuratione; Of the red man & his whit wyfe called eclipsacione.

1559 W. Cuningham Cosmogr. Glasse 103 If the time in the beginning of her obscuration be more, then that which I have heare placed.

1603 P. Holland tr. Plutarch Morals 1307 The obscuration or ecclipse of the Sunne.

1611 T. Coryate Crudities sig. Ss Not to the obscuration but the illustration of Gods glory.

1646 Sir T. Browne Pseudodoxia Epidemica vi. iii. 286 Their Heliacall obscuration, or their inclusion in the lustre of the Sunne. View more context for this quotation

1690 T. Burnet Theory of Earth iii. xi. 96 As to the Sun and Moon, their obscuration or change of colour is no more than what happens commonly before the Eruption of a fiery Mountain.

1814 J. Playfair Outl. Nat. Philos. II. i. viii. 139 The[se] moments..determine the beginning, the greatest obscuration, and the end of the eclipse.

1838 H. H. Milman in E. Gibbon Decline & Fall II. xv. 380/1 This obscuration of the sun rarely took place in Palestine.

a1852 W. Macgillivray Nat. Hist. Dee Side (1855) 178 Here, in the wood,..there is no continuous obscuration of the sky by the foliage.

1881 Harper's Mag. Dec. 157/1 A few minutes before the time fixed by astronomers for the obscuration to begin, the wag mounted himself on an empty sugar hogshead and began his incantation.

1910 Encycl. Brit. I. 655/2 Previously to each obscuration, the star was found to be moving rapidly away from the earth.

1990 Q. Jrnl. Med. 77 1257 Visual obscuration resolved after treatment with oral acetazolamide.

1991 C. A. Ronan Nat. Hist. Universe Gloss. 194/3 An eclipse of the Sun is in fact an occulation (one body passing in front of another), although in astronomy the latter term is usually reserved for the obscuration of a star or planet by an asteroid or satellite such as the Moon.

1654 J. Crandon Mr. Baxters Aphorisms Exorized & Anthorized ii. 77 The Antecedent of this Position is nothing else but the reassuming of his former Assumption with a short explication and a short obscuration added to it.

1791 J. Boswell Life Johnson anno 1729 I. 28 To Johnson, whose supreme enjoyment was the exercise of his reason, the disturbance or obscuration of that faculty was the evil most to be dreaded.

1820 C. R. Maturin Melmoth III. xviii. 281 ‘I need not tell you,’ said Isidora, with that singular mixture of natural firmness, and partial obscuration of intellect.

1856 Putnam's Monthly Mag. Oct. 345/1 Were a similar obscuration to fall upon the intellect of modern times, the very first books that would soonest cease to have readers..would be the Principia and Mechanique celeste.

1910 Catholic Encycl. VII. 187/1 He was halted and tortured by an inexplicable obscuration of the mind.

1987 D. Ywahoo Voices of Ancestors vi. 212 To remove obscurations from your heart, call upon the clear light and its insight.

1867 J. R. Lowell Biglow Papers 2nd Ser. (new ed.) p. xxxi Our old dramatists are full of such obscurations..of the th, making whe'r of whether.

1884 N.E.D. I. Gen. Explan. p. xxiv By writing these [sc. the original vowels] with the mark of obscuration, we are enabled to indicate at once the theoretical and the actual pronunciation.

1894 N.E.D. at Decoy sb.² An obscuration of duck itself in duck-coy.

1904 Rep. Joint Comm. Phonetic Eng. Alphabet (U.S.) ii. 12 In unstressed syllables the sounds undergo a change which, in the lack of a better name, may be called ‘obscuration’. The quality and extent of this obscuration vary somewhat with the style of the discourse, the idiosyncrasy of the speaker and the nature of the neighboring consonants.

1935 J. S. Kenyon Amer. Pronunc. (ed. 6) 101 Not all of these pairs of stressed and stressless vowels represent the same historical stage of obscuration of the unaccented vowel.

1962 A. C. Gimson Introd. Pronunc. Eng. vii. 142 As a general rule, weak accent in OE led to the obscuration of short vowels and the shortening of long vowels.