sb. Also 6 ieo-, (yeo-), ioe-, ieoyfaile, ieofall. [Anglo-Fr. jeo fail, jo faill, I am at fault, I mistake.]
Law. A mistake or oversight in pleading or other legal proceeding; also, an acknowledgement of such error. Obs. exc. Hist.
1541. Act 32 Hen. VIII., c. 30. Thissues haue ben misioyned and a Ieofall [orig. draft Yeofaile]. Ibid. Any myspleading lacke of colour insufficient pleading or ieofaile notwithstanding.
1622. Malynes, Anc. Law-Merch., 465. The Writ of Error … was heretofore vsuall to prolong suits in Law, before the Statute of Ieofaile was made, meaning in good French I’ay failly.
1624. Act 21 Jas. I, c. 13. An Act for the further reformation of Jeofails.
1768. Blackstone, Comm., III. xxv. 407. Mistakes are also effectually helped by the statutes of amendment and jeofails: so called, because when a pleader perceives any slip in the form of his proceedings, and acknowledges such error (jeo faile) he is at liberty by those statutes to amend it.
1810. Bentham, Packing (1821), 137, note. Here we see—alas!—a jeofail: a jeofail in the shape of a misrecital.
1879. Act 42–3 Vict., c. 59. Sched. II. 32 Hen. VIII., c. 30. Mispleading Jeofayles, &c.
[1883. Act 46–7 Vict., c. 49 § 4. The enactments mentioned in Part II of the schedule to the Civil Procedure Acts, Repeal Act, 1879, are hereby repealed.]
† b. transf. and fig. A mistake or error generally. (In first quot. Failure, discomfiture.) ? Obs.
1546. J. Heywood, Prov. (1867), 82. Pouertee brought that ioye to ioefaile.
1641. ‘Smectymnuus,’ Vind. Answ., xi. 111. The Acts of Dioclesian Maxim.… You doe as good as passe by … which is a greater Jeofaile then our Maximilian.
1644. J. Goodwin, Innoc. Triumph. (1645), 22. I conceive it to be a jeofaile in Theologie, a mistake in stead of a truth.
1828. Edin. Rev., XLVIII. 511. These flaws and jeofails are not nature’s doings, but our own.
Hence † Jeofail v. intr., to fail to meet an obligation. Obs. rare–1.
1599. Hayward, 1st Pt. Hen. IV., 27. The Lords … sent him word, that if hee did ieofaile with them, and not come according to appointment, they would chuse another King.
