Incatenation

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act of linking together; enchaining. archaic, uncountable

    "[…] I am apt to think, that a perſon, vvho vvas ready to give more knovvledge than he received, vvould be vvelcome vvherever he came. […] Hovv much more nobly vvould a philoſopher, thus employed, ſpend his time, than […] more triflingly ſedulous in the incatenation of fleas, or the ſculpture of cherry-ſtones."

Example

More examples

"[…] I am apt to think, that a perſon, vvho vvas ready to give more knovvledge than he received, vvould be vvelcome vvherever he came. […] Hovv much more nobly vvould a philoſopher, thus employed, ſpend his time, than […] more triflingly ſedulous in the incatenation of fleas, or the ſculpture of cherry-ſtones."

Etymology

From Latin incatenatio, from Latin in- (“in”) + catena (“chain”). See enchain.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.