the.com/visitation
A scheduled time to see someone, often a child, under formal or legal arrangement.
means An official visit — especially a scheduled, often court-arranged time for a separated parent to be with their child, or a formal visit by an inspecting authority (or, grandly, a supernatural appearance).
from From Latin visitare, 'to go see, to visit,' itself built from visere, 'to view, to go look at,' a frequentative form of videre, 'to see.' Church Latin stretched the word to cover God's or an angel's 'visit' to humankind — hence 'visitation' for divine appearances — while English later narrowed a civic sense down to the bureaucratic checkup: officials visiting to inspect, or courts scheduling parents to visit the children they no longer live with.
- legal term
- formalized by family courts, not families
- the irony
- parents visit children they once lived inside
- church cousin
- also means a bishop's inspection visit
- supernatural version
- ghosts and angels also do it, less paperwork