A webpage describing ancient Egyptian glass objects (http://www.virtual-egyptian-museum.org/Collection/FullVisit/Collection.FullVisit-JFR.html?../Content/GLS.VS.00997.html&0) comes up with a word new to me: “Origin and datation uncertain”. The remainder of the text is unremarkable --- pretty certainly the work of a native (or at any rate, fluent) speaker/writer of English. Has anyone else encountered this construction? I hope it’s no more than an individual aberration, and that archaeologists will continue to date, rather than datate, ancient objects.

It’s a new one on me.  Googling suggests that it is a French word (in which language it may be entirely unexceptionable) that has made slight inroads into English.  Since accessing the OED from home is cumbersome, I haven’t checked to see if it’s listed.  Dictionary.com and MWO don’t recognize it, but Wiktionary does.

It’s possible that it’s crept into English written by French speakers as an assumed cognate, much like Senning’s acribic.

Senning ... now there’s a blast from the past.  I see he hasn’t visited since 2010.  He was last seen researching chemical nomanclature, and I note that Dave Wilton at the wordorigins site has been credited in Senning’s book on the topic, selling for $170.  Sadly, only Dave and several notable worthies, but not the rest of the contributors here (particularly Dr Techie, whose knowledge and expertise was as ever invaluable).

It’s in the OED (March 2012) with citations ranging from 1910 to 2008, and the etymology says “perhaps partly after French datation.”

It’s new to me too. The citations make it look to be a jargon word, used particularly in reference to dating manuscripts and other artifacts, rather than an attempt by someone to speak in what they perceive to be an elevated style (cf. Mike Tyson).

New to me too, but OED does indeed have it and surprisingly with cites going back to 1910.

datation, n.

= dating n. 2.

1910 Mod. Lang. Notes 25 4/1 We know nothing of the datation of any of the three sonnets.
1929 Catholic Hist. Rev. 15 64 Aside from the lectures, the students are exercised in the reading, transcription, and datation of the volumes.
1958 Illustr. London News 12 Apr. 605/2 Coins, pottery.., beads, a few ornaments, are precise points of reference for the chronological datation of the various layers.
2008 S. Legrand in K. M. Linduff & K. S. Rubinson Are all Warriors Male? viii. 155 The datation generally set for the Karasuk culture is 1400-1000 BC. However, this evaluation is based on radiocarbon datations obtained from human bone samples recovered at funerary sites that belong to a developed phase of the Karasuk culture.

Added on edit: I had a feeling Dave would pip me!

Thanks, all. After reading the above responses, I checked (acribically ;-), and find that the word is used to mean “dating” (archaeological, geological, etc.) not only in French, but in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian as well:  datation / datación /datação / datazione

Live and learn.

(creeps, scowling, muttering, and clutching bottle, back into the hide in which he’s bound)

I’ve decided I don’t like it.

In that, OP Tipping, you and I are of one mind