exercitation

plural exercitations

1. countableobsoleterareuncountableThe exercise or exertion of some power, responsibility, faculty etc.

   Come up, sir, and show me your exercitation.

   1855, Charles Kingsley, Westward Ho!

   3 more examples

   To Crates and Dicæarchus it seemed that there was none at all;[…] To Plato, that it was a substance moving of it selfe: To Thales, a Nature without rest; To Asclepiades, an exercitation of the senses[…].

   1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC

   This was at first to have taken place alternately at each other's houses, but we soon discovered that my friend's resolution was inadequate to severing him from his couch at the early hour fixed for this exercitation.

   1901, John Gibson Lockhart, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10)

   Mens sana in corpore sano, which being translated means, mens—or perhaps I should say, men—should incorporate bodily exercise with mental exercitation.

   1890, Various, Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 25