visit

visit n Visit, visitation, call are comparable when they mean a coming to stay with another, usually for a brief time, as a courtesy, an act of friendship, or a business or professional diity.

Visit applies not only to such a stay with another

{

pay a visit to a friend

}

{

a physician's bill for visits

}

{

a welfare worker's visit

}

but also, to a more prolonged stay as a house guest or in a place where one goes for rest, entertainment, or sightseeing

{

a week's visit in a friend's summer home

}

{

off for a visit to Washington

}

{

plan a visit to Europe

}

Visitation (see also TRIAL 2)

is chiefly employed in reference to a formal or official visit (as to a church, a college, or a ship) made by one in authority (as an ecclesiastical superior, a school superintendent, or a medical inspector)

{

parochial visitations of a bishop

}

{

a visitation and search of a merchant ship can be made only by an authorized official

}

The term may also be used of something that visits one, often by or as if by the will of a superior power

{

ye gentle visitations of calm thought— Shelley

}

or that is visited upon one and that is usually regarded as an affliction

{

an illness, a maiming accident or some other visitation of blind fate— Conrad

}

Call applies only to a brief visit, such as one makes upon a person who is not a friend, but with whom one has social or official relations

{

a society woman must give a portion of her time to formal calls

}

or by a person in quest of business or of a business order

{

the morning call of the grocer's boy

}

The term, however, may be used in place of visit for a short social visit.