Emily Dickinson Lexicon

AP-PROX-I-MA'TION, n.

1. Approach; a drawing, moving or advancing near. – Hale.
2. In arithmetic and algebra, a continual approach or coming nearer and nearer to a root or other quantity, without being able perhaps ever to arrive at it. – Encyc. Johnson.
3. In medicine, communication of disease by contact. – Coxe.
4. A mode of cure by transplanting a disease into an animal or vegetable by immediate contact. – Coxe.