Qua*ter"ni*on (?), n. [L.
quaternio, fr. quaterni four each. See
Quaternary.] 1. The number four.
[Poetic]
2. A set of four parts, things, or person;
four things taken collectively; a group of four words, phrases,
circumstances, facts, or the like.
Delivered him to four quaternions of
soldiers.
Acts xii. 4.
Ye elements, the eldest birth
Of Nature's womb, that in quaternion run.
Milton.
The triads and quaternions with which he loaded
his sentences.
Sir W. Scott.
3. A word of four syllables; a
quadrisyllable.
4. (Math.) The quotient of two vectors,
or of two directed right lines in space, considered as depending on
four geometrical elements, and as expressible by an algebraic symbol
of quadrinomial form.
&fist; The science or calculus of quaternions is a new
mathematical method, in which the conception of a quaternion is
unfolded and symbolically expressed, and is applied to various classes
of algebraical, geometrical, and physical questions, so as to discover
theorems, and to arrive at the solution of problems. Sir W. R.
Hamilton.
Qua*ter"ni*on, v. t. To divide into
quaternions, files, or companies. Milton.
