limitate

Limitate is an English verb meaning to set or determine boundaries; to bound, delimit, or confine within specified limits. The term is uncommon in everyday use and is chiefly found in historical, legal, or technical literature. It is derived from Medieval Latin limitare, from Latin limen meaning threshold or boundary, and entered English through Latin legal or ecclesiastical phrasing, with the suffix -ate forming the verb.

In use, to limitate something is to mark its borders or to restrict its scope. This can apply to physical spaces such as territories or parcels, as well as to rights, jurisdictions, or resources. Because the term is rare, modern writers tend to replace it with more common verbs such as delimit, delineate, bound, or restrict.

The word appears most often in older contracts, treaties, survey reports, or scholastic tracts where authors discuss the delimitation of authority, land, or natural boundaries. In contemporary writing, references to limitation are usually expressed with the noun limitation, or with verbs like delineate or delimit. Example sentences are uncommon, but one might encounter phrasing such as, "The charter limitated the ward's powers to the river boundary," though this usage is stylistically dated and not widely recommended in modern prose. See also limit, delimit, delineate, boundary.