alimentation

[Eng. aliment; -ation. In Ger. & Fr. alimentation; Sp. aliment a cion.] 1. The act or quality of affording nourishment. " they [the teeth] are subservient in man not only to alimentation , but to beauty and speech."Owen: Cla if, of the Mammal i a (1859), p. 50. 2. The state of being nourished by a imilation of matter received into the body or frame. "Plants do nourish, inanimate bodies do not they have an accretion, but no alimentation." - Bacon : Nat . Hist .