assimilation

Borrowed from Medieval Latin assimilatio. By surface analysis, assimilate +‎ -ion.

• IPA^(key): /əˌsɪməˈleɪʃən/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

assimilation (countable and uncountable, plural assimilations)

1. The act of assimilating or the state of being assimilated.
   • 1797, An English Lady, A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795,‎:

     --France swarms with Gracchus's and Publicolas, who by imaginary assimilations of acts, which a change of manners has rendered different, fancy themselves more than equal to their prototypes.

   • 1996 January 26, Bertha Husband, “Double Identity”, in Chicago Reader‎:

     His work generally is full of assimilations and quotations from art that is not Mexican, and he's said, "Nationalism has nothing to do with my work.

2. The metabolic conversion of nutrients into tissue.
   • 1908, Washington Gladden, The Church and Modern Life‎:

     We have great need to be careful in these assimilations; some kinds of food are rich but not easily digested.

3. (by extension) The absorption of new ideas into an existing cognitive structure.
4. (phonology) A sound change process by which the phonetics of a speech segment becomes more like that of another segment in a word (or at a word boundary), so that a change of phoneme occurs.
   • 2014, James Lambert, “A Much Tortured Expression: A New Look At `Hobson-Jobson'”, in International Journal of Lexicography, volume 27, number 1, page 59:

     Hence, rather than being the result of mishearing and assimilation, the application of Hobson-Jobson to the Muharram was intentionally disparaging.

5. (sociology, cultural studies) The adoption, by a minority group, of the customs and attitudes of the dominant culture.

   After centuries of British cultural assimilation, a majority of Irish now speak English instead of Irish.

• dissimilation

• (phonology): regressive assimilation, anticipatory assimilation, progressive assimilation, perseverative assimilation

• acculturation
• liaison
• mutation
• rendaku
• sandhi

• Islamisation

assimilation c (singular definite assimilationen, plural indefinite assimilationer)

1. assimilation
2. (linguistics) assimilation
3. (sociology) assimilation

• (sociology): pluralistisk integration, segregation

• tvangsassimilation

• “assimilation” in Den Danske Ordbog

From assimiler +‎ -ation.

• IPA^(key): /a.si.mi.la.sjɔ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

assimilation f (plural assimilations)

1. (phonology) assimilation

   Antonym: dissimilation

• assimilation progressive
• assimilation régressive

• “assimilation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.