lese-majesty Civil Law.
(ˈliːzˈmædʒəstɪ)
Also 6 lease-, leis-, 7 læse-, 8–9 leze-.
[ad. F. lèse-majesté, ad. L. læsa mājestās hurt or violated majesty, i.e. of the sovereign people.]
Any offence against the sovereign authority; treason.
| [1430–40 Lydg. Bochas iv. xii. (1494) sig. p iij, Lyst he were accused to thestates Of cryme called lese magestatis.] 1536 Bellenden Cron. Scot. (1821) I. 12 Nochtwithstanding quhatsumever offence of lese majeste committit be thaim. a 1578 Lindesay (Pitscottie) Chron. Scot. (S.T.S.) I. 397 G. D...was banischit in Ingland ffor certane crymes of leismaiestie. 1609 Skene Reg. Maj. 6 The crime, quhilk in the Civill law, is called the crime of lese Majestie. a 1651 Calderwood Hist. Kirk (1843) II. 356 The conspirators ashamed to expresse the king's murther, committed this fained rapt, a crime of lese-majestie. 1726 Cavallier Mem. iv. 332, I confess I am loaded with the Crime of Leze Majesty. 1818 Scott Hrt. Midl. xi, Perduellion is..muckle warse than lese-majesty, or the concealment of a treasonable purpose. 1830 Bentham Const. Code Wks. 1843 IX. 38 Under a representative democracy..there can be no lese majesty. 1873 Longfellow Wayside Inn, Rhyme Sir Christopher 20 Not having been at court Seemed something very little short Of treason or lese-majesty. |
| transf. a 1649 Drummond of Hawthornden Hist. Jas. I, Wks. (1711) 9 King Henry [8th] was..a rebel guilty of lese-majesty divine. 1841 Emerson Addr., Meth. Nature Wks. (Bohn) II. 227 Why then goest thou as some..listening worshipper to this saint or to that? That is the only lese-majesty. |
¶ Both in
Fr. and
Eng., the first member of this word has been treated as a verb-stem, to which a
n. may be attached in an objective relation, forming compounds with the general sense of ‘outrage upon the rights or dignity of’ (what is expressed by the
n.). So in
Fr. lèse-catholicité,
lèse-faculté,
lèse-société, etc. (see Littré); the
Eng. examples below are mere nonce-wds.
| 1790 Burke Fr. Rev. 104 Persons whom the leze nation might bring under the administration of his executive powers. 1814 Southey Lett. (1856) II. 361 All flogging in schools is prohibited, as a crime of leze-liberty in a free country. 1831 Gen. P. Thompson Exerc. (1842) I. 424 There is scarcely an honest or independent man among them, who has not in some way or other been guilty of Lèse-Toryism. 1833 Sir W. Hamilton Discuss. (1852) 570 To enfeeble them [classical studies] would..be..in a certain sort, the crime of lese-humanity. 1870 Lowell Poems, Cathedral, I was a poacher on their self-preserve Intent constructively on lese-anglicism. |