gesturation

plural gesturations

1. countablerareuncountableGesture.

   Poor Mayes overdid himself and has lost his speech. Came up to my room and woke me up this morning with appealing eyes and curious gesturations.

   1917, Wilfred Owen, “Letter to Susan Owen dated 10 September, 1917”, in Complete Works, UK: Delphi Classics, published 2012

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   [Hippocrates] reduced his remedies to five, which were abstinence from flesh, abstinence from wine under certain circumstances, friction, walking and gesturation, or body exercises […]

   1927, L. C. Hiegel, The Four Episodes of Life, page 165

   […] the characters in [Robert Wilson’s] productions can hardly be said to express a personal psychology; instead, they are ciphers of a remote mode of gesturation. Put otherwise: his figures might be said to express expression in lieu of any conventionalized emotion.

   2009, “Introduction”, in Stanley Sadie, editor, The Grove Book of Operas, page xv