[f. VERGE v.2 + -ENCY.]
† 1. The act or fact of verging or inclining towards some condition, etc.; tendency, leaning; an instance of this. Also const. to, toward. Obs.
a. 1665. J. Goodwin, Filled with the Spirit (1867), 486. The general vergency and leaning of the Scriptures on that hand we speak of.
1668. H. More, Div. Dial., II. 451. The visible vergency of the World to another Degeneracy or Apostasie from the Kingdome of Christ. Ibid. (1680), Apocal. Apoc., 27. Which is a sign you are in a state of languishment and vergency towards death.
1702. C. Mather, Magn. Chr., III. II. xxix. 164/1. Scarce a Minute [would] pass him without a Turn of his Eye towards Heaven, whereto his heaven-touch’d Heart was carrying of him, with its continual Vergencies.
† b. Bent or inclination. Obs.
1649. J. H., Motion to Parl. Adv. Learn., 33. It were but justice to him that the naturall vergency of his Genius should be found out.
2. The fact or condition of being inclined toward some object or in some direction.
1668. Wilkins, Real Char., II. vii. § 3. That respect of the imaginary face of a thing towards some other thing or place, called vergency, tending, leaning, inclining.
a. 1696. Scarburgh, Euclid (1705), 13. First, there must be … an Inclination, Vergency,… or Tendency, of Two lines one to the other.
b. Optics. (See quots.)
1832. Sir W. R. Hamilton, in Trans. R. Irish Acad. (1837), XVII. 80. We may therefore call the curvatures of these two diametral sections the two vergencies of the final ray-lines.
1860. Worcester (citing Lloyd), Vergency,… the reciprocal of the focal distance, being the measure of the degree of divergence or convergence of a pencil of rays.
