Vĭs'it-ā'tion, n.

n. [Fr. visitation, Sp. visitacion, It. visitazione, Pr. & Lat. visitatio.] 1. The act of visiting, or the state of being visited; access for inspection or examination. Nothing but peace and gentle visitation. Shak. 2. Object of visit. [Obs.] O flowers! My early visitation and my last. Milton.

3. (Law.) The act of a superior or superintending officer, who visits a corporation, college, church, or other house, to examine into the manner in which it is conducted, and see that its laws and regulations are duly observed and executed; as, in England, the visitation of the diocese belongs to the bishop; parochial visitation belongs peculiarly to the archdeacon.
4. (International Law.) The act of a naval commander who visits or enters on board a vessel belonging to another nation, for the purpose of ascertaining her character and object, but without claiming or exercising a right of searching the vessel.
5. Special dispensation; communication of divine favor and goodness, or, more usually, of divine wrath and vengeance; retribution; retributive calamity or trouble.

What will ye do in the day of visitation? Isa. x. 3.

6. A church festival in honor of the visit of the Virgin Mary to Elizabeth, celebrated on the second of July. Brande.
7. (Rom. Cath. Church.) A religious community, founded originally at Annecy, in Savoy, in 1610, and in 1808 established in the United States; — called also The Order of the Visitation of Our Lady. The nuns, in America, are devoted to the education of girls.