The noun delibation, now deemed obsolete by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), has two definitions:
1) A brief or slight knowledge or experience of something; a taste of something, and
2) The action of taking or abstracting something from a larger whole; (also) the part which is abstracted.
The OED provides examples including these for each definition respectively:
"For example of the perspicuous Texts of Scripture in defence of our Catholike faith, I will insist in some few of them for some delibation and taste of the rest." Anon. ("Composed by a Catholike Priest"), Keepe your Text*, p. 32, 1619.
"They considered the principles of motion and vegetation as delibations from the invisible fire of the universe." Adams, George. Lectures on natural and experimental philosophy, Vol. II, xxi, p. 470, 1794.
The word derives from the classical Latin dēlībāt-, the past participial stem of dēlībāre, related to the classical Latin verb delibatus (“diminished, tasted”), past participle of delibo (“I take away from, I taste from”); de- + libo (“I taste”), meaning: 1) To taste; to take a sip of, and 2) To dabble in.
*Full title: Keepe Your Text. Or a Short Discourse, Wherein is Sett Downe a Method to Instruct, how a Catholike (though But Competently Learned) May Defend His Fayth Against the Most Learned Protestant, that Is, If So the Protestant Will Tye Himselfe to His Owne Principle and Doctrine, in Keeping Himselfe to the Text of the Scripture
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