L. Latin: Protesting. The emphatic word formerly used in pleading by way of protestation. 3 Bl. Comm. 311. See PROTESTATION.
Law Dictionary – Alternative Legal Definition
pleading. According to Lord Coke, Co. Litt. 124, it is an exclusion of a conclusion. It has been more fully defined to be a saving to the party who takes it, from being concluded by any matter alleged or objected against him, upon which he cannot join issue. 4. Protestations are of two sorts; first, when a man pleads anything which he dares not directly affirm, or cannot plead for fear of making his plea double; as if, in conveying to himself by his plea a title to land, the defendant ought to plead divers descents from several persons, but dares not affirm that they were all seised at the time of their death; or, although he could do so, it would make his plea double to allege two descents, when one descent would be a sufficient bar, then the defendant ought to plead and allege the matter introducing the word protesting, thus, protesting that such a one died seised, and this the adverse party cannot traverse. 5. The other sort of protestation is, when a person is to answer two matters, and yet by law he can only plead one of them, then in the beginning of his plea he may say, protesting or not acknowledging such part of the matter to be true, and add, but for plea in this behalf, , and so take issue, or traverse, or plead to the other part of the matter; and by this he is not concluded-by any of the rest of the matter, which he has by protestation so denied, but may afterwards take issue upon it.