[ad. Fr. ajustement: see ADJUST v. and -MENT.]
1. The process of adjusting; setting right, regulating, arranging, settling, harmonizing, or properly disposing.
1644. Milton, Jus Pop., 60. Fit for that adjustment of time, and other circumstances.
1678. Trans. at Crt. Spain, II. 92. There arose new difficulties in the adjustment of our troubles.
1769–90. Sir J. Reynolds, Disc., xi. (1876), 25. His principal care and attention seems to have been fixed on the adjustment of the whole.
1814. Scott, Waverley, xlii. (1862), 187. The rest of the apparel required little adjustment.
1869. Tyndall, Light, § 177, 26. The eye possesses a power of adjustment for different distances.
1881. Routledge, Science, i. 12. The adjustment of the calendar was a subject which received much attention.
1887. Mivart in Nature, No. 614, 326. Of all the races of men they are the mightiest and most noble who are, or by self-adjustment can become, most fit for all the new conditions of existence in which by various changes they may be placed.
2. The state or condition of being adjusted, or put in proper order; arrangement, settlement.
1689. Lond. Gaz., mmcccclxv/3. The Business of Holstein was in a very fair way to an Adjustment.
1713. Guardian, No. 27 (R.). Say if there be not a connexion, and adjustment, and exact and constant order discoverable in all the parts of it.
1798. Wellington, in Gen. Desp., I. 5. A regular mode of bringing to an amicable adjustment … any questions which might hereafter arise.
1840. Carlyle, Heroes (1858), 272. The Poet indeed, with his mildness, what is he but the product and ultimate adjustment of Reform, or Prophecy, with its fierceness?
1863. Fawcett, Pol. Econ., III. iii. 321. The prices obtained for the produce … cause everything to be in a state of perfect adjustment.
3. An arrangement or means whereby things are adjusted.
1736. Butler, Anal., I. v. 131. Unsettle the adjustments and alter the proportions, which formed it.
1793. Wollaston, Transit Circle, in Phil. Trans., LXXXIII. 138. The adjustments of the Y s are both of them at the same end of the axis, opposite to the divided circle and the microscopes.
1871. Tyndall, Frag. Sc., I. vi. (ed. 6), 207. This instrument, with its wheels and verniers, and delicate adjustments.
4. Comm. The settlement among various parties of their several shares in respect of claims, liabilities, or payments; as the adjustment of the policy, or of general average in Marine Insurance.
c. 1670. in Burton’s Diary (1828), III. 548. Yesterday the said resident signed the adjustment of the sum, with the deputies of the States General.
1842. Park, Law Mar. Insur., I. vi. 267. The policy had been adjusted by the defendant at 50l. per cent., and it was contended that he was now bound by that adjustment.
1848. Arnould, Mar. Insur., I. iv. (1866), I. 182. The several underwriters, as this indorsement is submitted to them, sanction it with their initials, and this is called the adjustment of the policy. Ibid., III. iv. II. 772. The ascertainment of the damage done and of the sums to be paid in contribution by the parties or their underwriters, is called the adjustment of general average.
