The process of carrying out or bringing to completion, particularly in medical or biological contexts; the state of being fully developed or matured.
From Latin 'ex-' (out) + 'fetus' (offspring, young), derived from the idea of bringing something to full term or completion. The suffix '-ation' indicates a process or state.
This obscure Latin-derived term reflects how medieval physicians and scholars borrowed from pregnancy terminology to describe any process of maturation or completion—showing how bodies and abstract processes were metaphorically linked in early scientific thinking.
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