Citations:defossion

English citations of defossion

					1834
ME «	15th c.	16th c.	17th c.	18th c.	19th c.	20th c.	21st c.

The punishment of being buried alive?

1834, Robert Slater Bayley, Notitiæ Ludæ, or Notices of Louth, William Edwards, Butcher‐Market; and Simpkin and Marshall, page 224:
A more likely cause is one of the plagues, that fixed its evil centre in Louth, and swept its death‐line over the neighbouring villages: and still more likely, in the estimation of some, as the cause of this defossion, was the repugnance which the vestal virgins in the nunnery at Legbourne exhibited to the dissolution act, from which they importunately petitioned for exemption.

digging up, removing the earth from off of? compare effossion

1830, William Martin Leake, Travels in the Morea: With a Map and Plans, volume 3, page 302:
Dr Chandler, indeed, thought he had actually traced the beginning of Nero's canal near Lechaeum, where are some appearances of an excavation; but Nero himself could hardly have been so absurd as to attempt an excavation of seven miles, when one half of that distance would have attained his object much better. It is evident, from what has already been said as to the nature of the ground, that the defossion of the Isthmus would be a work sufficiently difficult in the narrowest part. To fortify it is a much easier operation, and accordingly we still trace, as I have already remarked , the remains of a Hellenic wall