contignation

From Latin contignātiō, from contignō (“I join with beams”), from con- + tignum (“beam”).

• IPA^(key): /kɒntɪɡˈneɪʃən/

contignation (plural contignations) (archaic)

1. The act or process of framing or slotting together, or uniting, like beams in a fabric.
   • 1796, Edmund Burke, letter on the genius and character of the French Revolution as it regards other nations:

     They were easily led to consider the flames that were consuming France, not as a warning to protect their own buildings (which were without any party wall, and linked by a contignation into the edifice of France,) but as an happy occasion […]

2. (architecture) A framework or fabric, such as of beams.
   • 1624, Henry Wotton, “The Seate, and the Worke”, in The Elements of Architecture, […], London: […] Iohn Bill, →OCLC, I. part, pages 39–40:

     [W]hen vvee ſpeake of the Intercolumniation or diſtance, vvhich is due to each Order, vve meane in a Dorique, Ionicall, Corinthian Porch, or Cloiſter, or the like of one Contignation, and not in Storied buildings.

• “contignation”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.