Rēs'er-vā'tion, n.

n. [Fr. réservation, Sp. reservación, It. riservazione, Pr. & L. Lat. reservatio. See RESERVE.] 1. The act of reserving, or keeping back; concealment, or withholding from disclosure; reserve. “With reservation of a hundred knights.” Shak. Make some reservation of your wrong. Shak.

2. Something withheld, either not expressed or disclosed, or not given up or brought forward.
3. A tract of the public land reserved for some special use, as for schools, the use of Indians, &c.; a reserve. [U. S.]
4. The state of being treasured up or kept in store; custody. Shak.
5. (Law.) (a.) A clause in an instrument by which some new thing is reserved out of the thing granted, and not in esse before. (b.) A proviso. Shaw. Kent.

This term is often used in the same sense with exception, the technical distinction being disregarded. Mental reservation, the withholding or failing to disclose something that affects a statement, promise, &c., and which, if disclosed, would materially vary its import.