coction

C3O1C3T1I1O1N1
US/ˈkɑkʃən/UK/ˈkɒkʃən/

noun

An act of boiling.

Scrabble 11

Meanings

nouncoction (plural coctions)

plural coctions

  1. obsoleteAn act of boiling.
  2. obsoletemedicineDigestion.
  3. archaichistoricalThe change which the humoralists believed morbific matter undergoes before elimination.

    A yellow Urine is caused by a due Concoction of the Chyle with the Blood. A red Urine is made by the Mixture of Blood with it, or by a greater Coction.

    1697, John Pechey, A Plain Introduction to the Art of Physick, ... to which is added the Materia Medica contracted, and alphabetical tables of the vertues of roots, etc, page 111
    3 more examples

    But it is found by ſad experience, that ſhe rouſes herſelf up to make a criſis, not only upon improper, and, as phyſicians call them, intercident days, […] vvhich ſeldom afford any criſis, and much ſeldomer a good one; but alſo vvhen there appear not any ſigns of coction, or at leaſt of due coction, and by theſe unſeaſonable attempts vveaken the patient, and increaſe the malady, or perhaps make it ſpeedily mortal.

    1686 (indicated as 1685–1686), Robert Boyle, “A Free Inquiry into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature: […]”, in The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle. […], volume IV, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, […], published 1744, →OCLC, section VI, page 396

    The body again was considered as a microcosm, formed of four humours, — the blood, lymph, bile, and atrabile, […] and the terms crudity, coction, and evacuation of the morbific matter, were used to express such supposed changes.

    1858, Thomas Alexander Wise, Essay on the Pathology of the Blood and Its Containing Vessels, page 2

    The second coction was the sanguification of this chyle within the liver itself. In the peripheral parts blood was in the third coction made flesh. The coctions were promoted by the animal heat (hence the term) and in the sixteenth century writers […]

    2014 July 10, A.Rupert Hall, The Revolution in Science 1500 - 1750, Routledge, →ISBN, page 154

Origin

  1. Latincoctiō
  2. Englishcoction

Borrowed from Latin coctiō.

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

coction. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/coction

MLA

“coction.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/coction. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “coction,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/coction.

Source: coction on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.