militation

plural militations

1. archaicConflict, struggle.First known use 17th c.

   This militation by the long poem against the designs of its poet is fascinating in Paterson and Maximus because their poets keep a careful vigil on the progress of The Cantos yet still do not avoid its fate of self-interrogation for their poems.

   1995, Peter Stoicheff, The Hall of Mirrors, page 166

   2 more examples

   How shall they be induced to sympathise with our principles, unless they can be convinced that those principles impel us to sympathise with them in their abhorrence of men and measures, whose iniquity consists in their militation against all principles?

   1799 December 12, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Advice to the friends of freedom”, in The Morning Post

   To withhold offices form men who are satisfied with their country's constitution, because they do not love the present administration, when they are better qualified than others, would be no less than a militation with the principles of a free government.

   1802, James Sullivan, letter, in Amory 1859, Life and Writings, vol. 2, p. 94