[syn: foliation, foliage]
4. the production of foil by cutting or beating metal into thin leaves;
5. the work of coating glass with metal foil;
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Foliation \Fo"li*a"tion\, n. [Cf. F. foliation.]
1. The process of forming into a leaf or leaves.
[1913 Webster]
2. The manner in which the young leaves are dispo?ed within
the bud.
[1913 Webster]
The . . . foliation must be in relation to the stem.
--De Quincey.
[1913 Webster]
3. The act of beating a metal into a thin plate, leaf, foil,
or lamina.
[1913 Webster]
4. The act of coating with an amalgam of tin foil and
quicksilver, as in making looking-glasses.
[1913 Webster]
5. (Arch.) The enrichment of an opening by means of foils,
arranged in trefoils, quatrefoils, etc.; also, one of the
ornaments. See Tracery.
[1913 Webster]
6. (Geol.) The property, possessed by some crystalline rocks,
of dividing into plates or slabs, which is due to the
cleavage structure of one of the constituents, as mica or
hornblende. It may sometimes include slaty structure or
cleavage, though the latter is usually independent of any
mineral constituent, and transverse to the bedding, it
having been produced by pressure.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
foliation
n 1: (botany) the process of forming leaves [syn: foliation,
leafing]
2: (geology) the arrangement of leaflike layers in a rock
3: (architecture) leaf-like architectural ornament [syn:
foliation, foliage]
4: the production of foil by cutting or beating metal into thin
leaves
5: the work of coating glass with metal foil
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
28 Moby Thesaurus words for "foliation":
accounting, census, counting, dactylonomy, delamination,
desquamation, enumeration, exfoliation, flakiness, foliage,
frondage, furfuration, inventorying, lamellation, lamination,
leafage, leafiness, measurement, numbering, numeration, pagination,
quantification, quantization, scaliness, stratification, tallying,
telling, umbrage