rejuvenationn.
/rᵻˌdʒuːvᵻˈneɪʃn/, U.S. /rəˌdʒuvəˈneɪʃən/, /riˌdʒuvəˈneɪʃən/ 1. The action or process of rejuvenating a person or thing, or of being rejuvenated; restoration to youth or freshness.
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the world > life > source or principle of life > age > youth > [noun] > rejuvenation
rejuvenescencea1631
rejuvenescencya1661
rejuvenation1746
a (new) lease of life1853
1746 T. Short Medicina Britannica Index 341 Rejuvenation.
1841 Southern Literary Messenger 7 100/1 The Greeks, with their usual inflation of style, call it a panacea, endowed with the property of rejuvenation.
1869 ‘M. Twain’ Innocents Abroad xxiii. 240 Renaissance was a term used to signify what was at best but an imperfect rejuvenation of art.
1871 G. H. Napheys Prevention & Cure Dis. i. ix. 305 Rejuvenation in old age.
1880 19th Cent. 7 275 I believe in the rejuvenation of worn-out institutions.
1929 Encycl. Brit. XI. 747/2 The grafting into men of testicles from apes (the so-called ‘monkey glands’) has been practised by Voronoff and others with resulting rejuvenation.
1952 G. Gamow in Birth & Death of Sun Pref. p. x Von Weizsäcker's rejuvenation of the old Kant-Laplace hypothesis gives us a consistent theory of planetary origin.
1996 Inner Bookshop (Oxford) Catal. 12 (title of book) Chi self-massage. The Taoist way of rejuvenation.
2005 P. F. Hamilton Judas Unchained vi. 327 Human immortality would become integral rather than dependent on the crudity of today's rejuvenation techniques.
2. Soil Science The return of a soil system to an earlier or previous stage of development, esp. the restoration of fertility to a soil following excessive cultivation.
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1893 Agric. Sci. 58 The interest based on the hope of economic soil rejuvenation has constantly increased under the stimulus of a belief in the existence of a symbiotic relationship between the specific cause of the formation of the tubercles and the different legumes.
1907 C. W. Burkett Soils xxix. 283 You will make no mistake in giving prominence to the physical improvement of the soils. It is the first step needed in the work of rejuvenation.
1981 J. D. Stout et al. in E. A. Paul & J. N. Ladd Soil Biochem. V. 37 The wide range of ages of soil organic matter predicted by the model, ranging from 0 to 2565 years, is consistent with the continuing rejuvenation of the soil by fresh plant or animal debris.
1997 National Trust Mag. Spring 13/1 Among the twelve garden projects to benefit from the donation [is]..rejuvenation and replanting of several garden areas at Greys Court.
3. Chiefly Geology and Geography. The return of a geological or ecological system to a condition or state of activity characteristic of an earlier stage of its development; spec. the initiation of a new cycle of erosion by a river or stream following uplift of the land or lowering of the sea level. Also: an instance of this; the result of such a process.
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1894 Jrnl. Geol. (Chicago) 2 753 Another Tertiary baselevel had almost been completed when a new uplift caused rejuvenation.
1913 Geogr. Jrnl. 41 119 My journey led me up the basin of the Kuja river, which yielded evidence, by its numerous rapids and waterfalls, of a rejuvenation, either by a general uplift of the land, or more probably by a fall in the level of the lake.
1936 Geogr. Jrnl. 87 20 Before rejuvenation the river had developed an open mature valley in marked contrast to its present rugged canyon.
1971 Nature 19 Feb. 539/1 Further local rejuvenations of the main graben and step faults continued until mid-Pleistocene times, deepening the Lake Naivasha and Lake Natron sectors.
1973 Quaternary Res. 3 461/1 Productivity can be higher in early than in late stages of ecosystem development, so that rejuvenation by periodic perturbations may often prove desirable.
2009 Jrnl. Volcanol. & Geothermal Res. 179 149/2 In that case the inner parts of the cone and flow are a rejuvenation of the volcano.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2009; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1746