[ad. L. līmitātiōn-em, f. līmitāre to LIMIT. Cf. F. limitation.]

1

  1.  The action of limiting (in senses of the vb.); an instance of this.

2

c. 1380.  Wyclif, Wks. (1880), 70. Þei commaunden þat no man schal preche þe gospel but at here wille & lymytacion.

3

1483.  Cath. Angl., 217/1. A Lymytacion, limitacio.

4

1533.  More, Apol., ix. Wks. 865/2. They … leaue not one man for Goddes parte thys eyghte hundred yeare paste by theyr owne lymitacion.

5

1542–3.  Act 34 & 35 Hen. VIII., c. 20 § 1. Their heires inheritable by the limitacion of suche giftes.

6

1608.  Willet, Hexapla Exod., 76. This absolute limitation and restraint of Satan.

7

1683.  Brit. Spec., 63. The Monarch himself must be Judge, and then farewel Limitation.

8

1720.  Waterland, Eight Serm., 250. It is here, without any restriction or limitation, applied, by the inspired Writer, to our Saviour Christ.

9

1833.  Ht. Martineau, Berkeley, I. viii. 159. Some objected to this, that mere convertibility was not enough without limitation.

10

1845.  Maurice, Mor. & Met. Philos., in Encycl. Metr., II. 610/1. The proper limitation of mathematical accuracy to things without matter.

11

1863.  H. Cox, Instit., III. iii. 623. A fresh limitation of the succession to the throne was made towards the end of the reign of William III.

12

  † b.  spec. The action of determining the boundaries of (a country) or the contour of (a figure). Obs.

13

1677.  W. Hubbard, Narrative, II. 5. Letters Patent granted by the King for the Limitation of Virginia.

14

1726.  Leoni, Alberti’s Archit., III. 31/2. Limitation we call the determining or fixing the sweeps of all the lines, the projections of the angles … and the depression of every hollow.

15

  † 2.  a. An allotted space; the district or circuit of an itinerant officer or preaching friar; the region belonging to a particular nation; fig. one’s allotted sphere. Obs.

16

c. 1380.  Wyclif, Serm., Sel. Wks. II. 182. Oo frere grutchiþ aȝens anoþer, and fiȝtiþ wiþ him, whanne he prechiþ treuþe in his lymytacioun.

17

c. 1386.  Chaucer, Wife’s T., 21. The lymytour … seyth his matyns and his hooly thynges As he gooth in his lymytacioun.

18

1401.  Pol. Poems (Rolls), II. 21. Your limitors … will not suffer one in anothers limitation.

19

1426.  Lydg., De Guil. Pilgr., 12620. Whyl thow the holdest by resoun Wyth-Inne thy lymytacioun, Nat to erryn, nyh nor ffer.

20

1527.  R. Thorne, in Hakluyt, Voy. (1589), 256. The saide Islands fall all without the limitation of Portingall.

21

1535.  Act. 27 Hen. VIII., c. 27. Auditours … yerely ridinge their seueral circuites and limittacions.

22

1552.  B. Gilpin, Serm. bef. Edw. VI. (1630), 25. Some [pulpits] have not had foure Sermons these fifteene or sixteene yeares, since Friers left their limitations.

23

  † b.  An allotted time. Obs.

24

1607.  Shaks., Cor., II. iii. 146. You haue stood your Limitation.

25

  3.  The condition of being limited; limitedness.

26

1597.  Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. lxix. § 1. As the substance of God is infinite, and hath no kinde of limitation.

27

1601.  Shaks., Jul. C., II. i. 283. Am I your Selfe But as it were in sort, or limitation?

28

1710.  Berkeley, Princ. Hum. Knowl., § 4. The natural dulness and limitation of our faculties.

29

1755.  Young, Centaur, i. Wks. 1757, IV. 123. Through the limitation of the human intellect.

30

1871.  R. H. Hutton, Ess., I. 109. What seems to us limitation, may be, not limitation, but a mode of divine power.

31

1875.  Lyell, Princ. Geol., II. III. xxxviii. 331. The limitation of groups of distinct species to regions separated from the rest of the globe by certain natural barriers.

32

1880.  Haughton, Phys. Geog., vi. 272. The limitation of special families and sub-orders to special Continents.

33

  4.  A point or respect in which something is limited; a limiting provision, rule or circumstance.

34

1523.  Fitzherb., Surv., 12. The lymitacyon expressed in the statute of Westmynster.

35

1590.  H. Swinburne, Testaments, 134. This limitation is suspected of some not to bee sounde.

36

1642.  Milton, Apol. Smect., Wks. 1851, III. 295. That limitation therefore of after settling is a meere tautology.

37

1664.  H. More, Myst. Iniq., x. 33. Let him mince it as well as he can with mental limitations and restrictions.

38

1667.  Pepys, Diary, 10 April. So as that he that goes there may go with limitations and rules to follow.

39

1733.  Cheyne, Eng. Malady, II. viii. § 1 (1734), 193. I shall have little further to add, but some Limitations … with regard to particular Cases.

40

1790.  Burke, Fr. Rev., Wks. V. 63. This limitation was made by parliament, that [etc.].

41

1855.  Prescott, Philip II., I. II. xi. 261. Most of the provinces coupled their acquiescence with limitations which rendered it of little worth.

42

1875.  Maine, Hist. Inst., ii. 53. He was heir to the earldom of Tyrone according to the limitations of the patent.

43

  5.  Law. a. The statutory specification of a period, or the period specified by statute, within which an action must be brought. Statute of Limitations: any of the statutes (now esp. 3 & 4 Will. IV., c. 27) fixing a period of limitation for actions of certain kinds. b. The specification of a period or the period specified for the continuance of an estate, or the operation of a law. c. The settlement of an estate by a special provision or with a special modification or modifications; the modification or provision itself.

44

  a.  1641.  Termes de la Ley, 196. Limitation is an assignement of a space or time, within which hee that will sue … ought to prove, that he or his ancestor was seised of the thing demanded, or otherwise he shall not maintaine his suit or action.

45

1768.  Blackstone, Comm., III. 178. It is enacted by the statute of limitations, 21 Jac. I. c. 16. that no entry shall be made by any man upon lands, unless within twenty years after his right shall accrue. Ibid., 188. In all these possessory actions there is a time of limitation settled, beyond which no man shall avail himself of the possession of himself or his ancestors. Ibid., 250. Sixty years … is the longest period of limitation assigned by the statute of Henry VIII.

46

1818.  Cruise, Digest (ed. 2), V. 313. If it be a legal debt, this Court being applied to for a discovery, will not prevent the statute of limitations from running.

47

1852.  Ld. Palmerston, in Croker Papers, 17 June (1884), I. i. 18. There is … no statute of limitation as to epistolary debts.

48

  b.  1767.  Blackstone, Comm., II. 155. When an estate is so expressly confined and limited by the words of it’s creation, that it cannot endure for any longer time than till the contingency happens upon which the estate is to fail, this is denominated a limitation.

49

1818.  Cruise, Digest (ed. 2), VI. 495. The future limitation being only for the life of a person in esse.

50

1821.  J. Q. Adams, in C. Davies, Metric Syst., III. (1871), 245. The limitation of the act was to three years, or the end of the next general assembly.

51

  c.  1767.  Blackstone, Comm., II. 193. A tenancy in common may … be created by express limitation in a deed.

52

1818.  Cruise, Digest (ed. 2), VI. 291. By the limitation of the will, he was to make a grant of the rent.

53

1827.  Jarman, Powell’s Devises (ed. 3), II. 73. The … failure of the objects of the several limitations.

54

1868.  E. Edwards, Ralegh, I. iv. 66. Most grants of this kind were attended by conditions and limitations.

55

  6.  = LIMIT 1 and 2. Also pl. bounds, boundaries.

56

1523.  Ld. Berners, Froiss., I. ccxxxviii. 344. They of the … marches and lymitacions of the realme of Castell, Came … and made homage.

57

1533.  Elyot, Cast. Helthe (1541), 1. To the conservation of the body of mankynde within the lymitation of helth.

58

1602.  Fulbecke, Pandectes, 61. Numa Pompilius … did cause as well a publik perambulation to be made throughout his whole kingdom as priuate limitations & bounds betwixt partie & partie.

59

1616.  Capt. J. Smith, Descr. New Engl., 23. The Gouernment, Religion, Territories and Limitations.

60

1815.  Jane Austen, Emma, II. viii. 193. She knew the limitations of her own powers too well to attempt more than she could perform with credit.

61

1824.  L. Murray, Eng. Gram. (ed. 5), I. 319. The supposed exceptions … do not come within the reason and limitation of the rule.

62

1864.  Bowen, Logic, i. 25. When the use of words is not checked by a frequent recurrence in thought to the precise limitations of their meaning.

63