digestion

From Old French digestion. Partly displaced native Old English melting (“melting, digestion”).

• IPA^(key): /daɪˈd͡ʒɛst͡ʃən/, /dɪˈd͡ʒɛst͡ʃən/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛstʃən

digestion (countable and uncountable, plural digestions)

1. The process, in the gastrointestinal tract, by which food is converted into substances that can be used by the body.
   • 1822, John Barclay, chapter I, in An Inquiry Into the Opinions, Ancient and Modern, Concerning Life and Organization‎, Edinburgh, London: Bell & Bradfute; Waugh & Innes; G. & W. B. Whittaker, section I, page 2:

     In the dead state all is apparently without motion. No agent within indicates design, intelligence, or foresight: there is no respiration; no digestion, circulation, or nutrition; […]

   • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 159:

     As for Grierson, he poured liquor into himself as if it were so much soothing syrup, demonstrating that a good digestion is the highest form of good conscience.

   • 2013 June 29, “A punch in the gut”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, pages 72–3:

     Mostly, the microbiome is beneficial. It helps with digestion and enables people to extract a lot more calories from their food than would otherwise be possible. Research over the past few years, however, has implicated it in diseases from atherosclerosis to asthma to autism.

2. The result of this process.
3. The ability to use this process.
4. The processing of decay in organic matter assisted by microorganisms.
5. The assimilation and understanding of ideas.
6. (medicine, archaic) Generation of pus; suppuration.
7. (chemistry) Dissolution of a sample into a solution by means of adding acid and heat.

• mechanical digestion
• predigestion

• digest
• digester
• digestible

• genistoid

Borrowed from Latin dīgestiōnem.

• IPA^(key): /di.ʒɛs.tjɔ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔ̃

digestion f (plural digestions)

1. digestion

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

• digestioun
• digestiun

digestion oblique singular, f (oblique plural digestions, nominative singular digestion, nominative plural digestions)

1. digestion

• IPA^(key): /did͡ʒesˈtjuŋ/

digestion f

1. digestion