Also 5 -te(e, 6 -ty(e, 6–7 -tie. [a. F. taciturnité (14th c.), or ad. L. taciturnitās, f. taciturn-us: see prec. and -ITY.]
1. Habitual silence or disinclination to conversation; reservedness in speech; a taciturn character or state.
c. 1450. trans. De Imitatione, III. xli. 112. Oþer whiles he aunsuerde, lest by his taciturnite occasion of offendynge miȝt haue be yoven.
1491. Caxton, Vitas Patr. (W. de W., 1495), I. I. 99 b/2. In the sayde monasterie was so grete tacyturnytee and scylence.
1576. Fleming, Panopl. Epist., 145. I cannot in this poinct vse taciturnitie and silence.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., IV. ii. 75. The secrets of nature Haue not more gift in taciturnitie.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 261, ¶ 1. My natural Taciturnity hindered me from showing my self to the best Advantage.
1809. W. Irving, Knickerb., III. viii. (1861), 107. Our ancestors were noted as being men of truly Spartan taciturnity.
1856. Miss Mulock, J. Halifax, ix. After which brief reply John relapsed into taciturnity.
2. Sc. Law. The silence of the creditor occasioning the extinction of an obligation in a shorter period than forty years’ prescription: it being presumed that the creditor would not have been so long silent if the debt had not been paid or the obligation implemented.
1765–8. Erskine, Instit. Law Scot., III. vii. § 29 (1773), 533. No general rule can be laid down, at what precise times actions may be lost by taciturnity.
1838. W. Bell, Dict. Law Scot., 967/2. The only cases in which extinction by such taciturnity has been recognised were those of bills of exchange, prior to the introduction of the sexennial prescription.
