[f. L. type *contingentia (perh. in med.L.), f. contingent- CONTINGENT: see -ENCE. (In F. app. from c. 1600: see Littré.)]
I. 1. Touching, contact. Angle of contingence: the infinitesimal angle between the circumference of a circle and its tangent, or between two tangents to a curve at consecutive points. Line of contingence: = contingent or tangent line.
1561. Eden, Arte Navig., II. xvi. 43 b. Call it the line of contingence.
1570. Billingsley, Euclid, III. Introd. 81. The angle of contingence is the least of all acute rightlined angles.
1656. Hobbes, Six Less., Wks. 1845, VII. 195. An angle of contingence hath its quantity as well as that which is called simply an angle.
1873. B. Williamson, Diff. Calc. (ed. 2), xvii. § 219. The total curvature of an arc of a plane curve is measured by the angle through which it is bent between its extremities—that is, by the external angle between the tangents at these points, assuming that the arc in question has no point of inflexion on it. This angle is called the angle of contingence of the arc.
fig. 1641. R. Brooke, Eng. Episc., I. v. 29. As … it is in the point of Contingence, every thing is either True or False.
† 2. Contiguity: nearness of nature, affinity; = CONTINGENCY 2. Obs.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., i. Notes 18. Like kindnesse as wee reade of twixt the Troians and the Romanes … which was louing respect through contingence of bloud.
II. 3. The coming to pass of anything without predetermination, freedom from necessity; chance; happening by chance; = CONTINGENCY 3.
c. 1530. Pol. Rel. & L. Poems (1866), 32. I haue seene folys leevyng contyngence, accuse them-selfe infortunat, of whom the wyse man seledom complaynith.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., III. iv. II. i. (1651), 687. They attribute all to natural causes, contingence of all things.
1754. Edwards, Freed. Will, II. iii. 45. Contingence is blind, and does not pick and choose for a particular Sort of Events.
1779–81. Johnson, L. P., Dryden. He delighted to talk of liberty and necessity, destiny and contingence.
1882–3. Schaff, Encycl. Rel. Knowl., III. 2306. The liberty of indifference or of contingence which had been charged upon the Arminians.
† 4. = A CONTINGENCY 4. ? Obs.
1660. Jer. Taylor, Worthy Commun., I. iv. 85. To heap together many rare contingences and miraculous effects of the holy Sacrament.
1677. Hale, Contempl., II. 158. A Thousand Contingences, may take away all my Wealth.
1754. Richardson, Grandison (1781), V. xvii. 97. This is a contingence, and must be left to time.
1829. I. Taylor, Enthus., vi. The common contingences of physical life.
