Pl. vincula. [L., f. vinc-, stem of vincīre to bind + -ulum -ULE.]
1. A bond of union; a tie. Usually fig.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. iv. 697. The Religion of an Oath is a Necessary Vinculum of Civil Society.
1699. Phil. Trans., XXI. 236. Which … does diffuse it self through the Whole, and breaking the Vinculum of the more solid Parts, does dissolve their Compages.
1710. T. Fuller, Pharm. Extemp. (1730), 4. The gentle Intestine motion of Fermentation knocking asunder their Vincula of mixture, they naturally fall to pieces.
1831. Blakey, Free-will, 198. In material objects we do not see the connecting principle—the vinculum, as it is termed, which links causes and effects together.
1856. R. A. Vaughan, Mystics (1860), II. VIII. iii. 279. The vincula of the Intellectual World are principally formulas of invocation.
a. 1871. Grote, Eth. Fragm., i. (1876), 13. Intimate connection drives us to conceive an ideal vinculum.
2. Math. A straight line drawn over two or more terms, denoting that these are to be considered as subject to the same operations of multiplication, division, etc., by another term.
1710. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., II. Vinculum, is a Term in Fluxions, implying that some compound surd Quantity is multiplied into a Fluxion, &c.
1743. W. Emerson, Fluxions, 24. The fluxionary Part may be divided by the Fluxion of the Root (or Part under the Vinculum).
1798. Hutton, Course Math. (1807), II. 292. When the Root under a Vinculum is a Compound Quantity; and the Index of the part or factor Without the Vinculum, increased by 1, is some Multiple of that Under the Vinculum.
[1842. Brande, Dict. Sci., etc., 1297. Vieta first used the bar or line over the quantities for a vinculum.]
1857. B. Smith, Arith. & Algebra (ed. 4), 5. The sign ￣￣ vinculum, placed over numbers,… [is] used to denote that all numbers under the vinculum … are equally affected by all numbers not under the vinculum.
1875. Encycl. Brit., I. 519/1. Each of these [quantities] has a line drawn over it called a vinculum.
fig. 1827. Tate, Grk. Metres, in Theatre of Greeks (ed. 2), 427. The words from τὸν to παῖδα are inclosed as it were in a vinculum of syntax.
1872. R. H. Hutton, Ess. (1877), I. 38. The other notion of unity … denotes the vinculum, or sheath, under which branches of thought or existence, really different in kind, are taken up into a single complex root or stem.
3. Anat. A ligament or frenum.
1859. Mayne, Expos. Lex. (and in later Dicts.).
