amalgamation

amalgamation (əˌmælɡəˈmeɪʃən)

—n
1.	the action or process of amalgamating
2.	the state of being amalgamated
3.	a method of extracting precious metals from their ores by treatment with mercury to form an amalgam
4.	commerce another word for merger

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

amalgamation

1610s; see amalgamate. Fig., non-chemical sense of "combining into one uniform whole" is attested from 1775.

Example sentences

But the movie is an uneven, unfocused amalgamation of ideas and moods that is

at times deeply moving nonetheless.

It's an amalgamation of various training methods.

Max is based on an amalgamation of my son and stepson.

It is a hydrocarbon amalgamation derived from crude oil that was millions of

years in the making.

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Related Words

assimilation blend

combination conflation

Matching Quote

"Now the hand-painted image of a person is costly because the time of a well-trained artist is required to make it. The time spent by the painter is time spent seeing as well as making. Literally thousands of separate perceptions must be consolidated into a single image by the portrait painter. Even where the style is naturalistic and the technique meticulous, the necessary process of amalgamation entails synthesis, generalization, exag geration, and simplification. Hence, much as we admire the painter's craft, we know that it changes optical data. The invention and perfection of photography has taught us to see how painters change what they see. Oddly enough, we are less conscious of the fact that the camera also changes reality. Beyond that, most of us do not realize how much the photographer manipulates what the camera sees because we have been thoroughly conditioned to believe in the photographer's—as opposed to the painter's—mode of representing reality. For practical purposes this means that we regard photographic imagery as truthful while painterly imagery is viewed, at best, as poetic."

-Edmund Burke Feldman