[ad. med.L. jactitātiōn-em (in Canon Law) a false declaration tending to some one’s detriment, n. of action f. L. jactitāre, in sense ‘to throw out publicly, to utter,’ freq. of jactāre: see JACTATION. The senses follow or are influenced by L. jactātio. So in F. (Littré).]
1. Public or open declaration, esp. of a boastful sort; ostentatious affirmation; boasting, bragging.
1632. High Commission Cases (Camden), 304. This jactitation or gloriacion of adultery is as much as a confession of the fact.
1655. Fuller, Ch. Hist., II. v. § 46. The Arch-bishop sent his Mandate to the Abbot and Convent of Glassenbury, henceforward to desist from any jactitation of Dunstan’s Corpse.
1766. J. Ibbetson, Plea Subscr. 39 Art. (T. Suppl.). Shall the jactitation of his friends be instead of a public revocation on his own part?
[1842. Blackw. Mag., LI. 684. What Johnson would call his perpetual ‘jactitation’ about the infinite wealth of the Indus.]
b. Law. Jactitation of Marriage: see quots.
1685. H. Consett, Pract. Spir. Crts., 252. The Defendant being cited in a Cause of Jactitation or Boasting of Marriage.
1773. Gentl. Mag., XLIII. 101. The long contested cause of Jactitation, brought by the Hon. Thomas Harvey against his lady, after a cohabitation of eighteen years.
1883. Wharton’s Law Lex. (ed. 2), 432/1. The suit of jactitation of marriage … which is not known to modern practice, may still be brought in the Divorce Court by the express terms of 20 and 21 Vict. c. 85, s. 6, when a person falsely boasts that he or she is married to another whereby a reputation of their marriage may ensue. The party injured sues for the purpose of having perpetual silence enjoined upon the unjustifiable boaster.
1892. Daily News, 12 July, 2/4. The case of ‘Thompson v. Rourke.’ It is a suit marked ‘Jactitation,’ and is of a very novel character, it being thirty years since such a case was before the Court.
2. Path. A restless tossing of the body: a symptom of distress in severe diseases. b. A twitching or convulsive movement of a limb or muscle.
1665. Harvey, Advice agst. Plague, 3. A perpetual restlesness, with anguishing jactitations, or throwing ones self from one part of the bed to the other.
1809. Med. Jrnl., XXI. 115. Voice querulous with constant moaning; jactitation; pulse … feeble.
1844. B. G. Babington, trans. Hecker’s Epidemics Mid. Ages (Syd. Soc.), 318. An insufferable itching came on over the whole body, accompanied by distressing jactitation.
1861. T. J. Graham, Pract. Med., 426. There may be jactitation of the extremities.
† 3. Discussion; bandying to and fro. Obs.
1761. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, IV. xxix. After much dispassionate enquiry and jactitation of the arguments on all sides,… it has been adjudged for the negative.
