Foliation

Pronunciation

• RP
• IPA: /fəʊlɪˈeɪʃn/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

Origin

From French foliation, from Latin folium ("leaf")

Full definition of foliation

Noun

1. The process of forming into a leaf or leaves.
2. The manner in which the young leaves are disposed within the bud.
3. The act of beating a metal into a thin plate, leaf, foil, or lamina.
4. The act of coating with an amalgam of tin foil and quicksilver, as in making looking-glasses.
5. The enrichment of an opening by means of foils, arranged in trefoils, quatrefoils, etc.; also, one of the ornaments.
• 1907, w, The Younger Set Chapter 1/2, The house was a big elaborate limestone affair, evidently new. Winter sunshine sparkled on lace-hung casement, on glass marquise, and the burnished bronze foliations of grille and door.
6. The property, possessed by some crystalline rocks, of dividing into plates or slabs, which is due to the cleavage structure of one of the constituents, as mica or hornblende. It may sometimes include slaty structure or cleavage, though the latter is usually independent of any mineral constituent, and transverse to the bedding, it having been produced by pressure.
7. (topology) A set of submanifolds of a given manifold, each of which is of lower dimension than it, but which, taken together, are coextensive with it.