a. and sb. [a. F. contingent 14th c. (Oresme), or ad. L. contingent-em touching together or on all sides, lying near, contiguous, coming into contact or connection, befalling, happening, coming to pass, pres. pple. of contingĕre to touch together, come into contact, etc., f. con- + tangĕre to touch. (The n belongs to the present stem, the root being tag-, in comp. tig-: cf. CONTACT, CONTAMINATE, CONTIGUE.) The subst. use is also in F.]
A. adj. I. From literal sense of L. contingere.
† 1. Touching each other, in contact; tangential.
Contingent line = tangent line; in Dialling a line crossing the substyle or substylar line at right angles.
1570. Billingsley, Euclid, III. Introd. 81. It teacheth … which are circles contingent, and which are cutting the one the other.
1571. Digges, Pantom., I. xvii. E iij b.
1593. Fale, Dialling, A iij. The Contingent or touch line … in all Dialls is drawn squirewise to the Substile.
1691. T. H[ale], Acc. New Invent., 123. Portions of Circles unto which the remaining strait part may be a contingent line.
1703. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., 319. On the Substilar Line chuse a point as at C, and thro’ that point draw a Line as long as you can perpendicular … (which is called the Contingent Line).
1703. T. N., City & C. Purchaser, 49. They strew Sea coal … betwixt all the Rows of Bricks; for they are not laid Contingent in their Vertical Rows. Ibid., 162. The corner of the second Tile is contingent with the 1st.
b. fig. ? Having contact or connection. Obs.
1721. D’Urfey, New Opera’s, 226. I … daily gave my self a Name Contingent with my Father’s Fame.
II. From L. contingere in sense ‘to happen.’
2. Liable to happen or not; of uncertain occurrence or incidence.
c. 1400. Test. Love, II. ix. (1561), 303. I wote it is contingent, it maye fal an other.
1475. Bk. Noblesse (1860), 50. It were but as contingent and of no necessite, that is to sey, as likely to be not as to be.
1628. T. Spencer, Logick, 218. Vnto man, all future things are contingent.
1684. Contempl. State Man, I. vii. (1699), 73. If Death were only contingent, and not certain, yet, because it might happen, it ought to make us very careful and solicitous.
1692. R. L’Estrange, Josephus’ Antiq., VIII. ii. (1733), 202. Deer, Birds, Fishes, and other contingent Curiosities of the Chace.
1790. Burke, Fr. Rev., 121. So much actual crime against so much contingent advantage.
1860. Emerson, Cond. Life, Wealth, Wks. (Bohn), II. 354. All salaries are reckoned on contingent as well as on actual services.
1861. Geo. Eliot, Silas M., 23. The results of confession were not contingent, they were certain; whereas betrayal was not certain.
b. Incidental (to).
1747. Gentl. Mag., XVII. 464. Contingent expenses with which the generals for fifty years past have filled the books of your office.
1833. J. C. Hare, in Philol. Mus., II. 122. The rights and obligations contingent to the colonus were of three kinds.
† 3. Happening. Obs.
1532. More, Confut. Barnes, VIII. Wks. 786/2. The final effect of thinges here contingent or happening.
4. Happening or coming by chance; not fixed by necessity or fate; accidental, fortuitous.
1613. R. C., Table Alph. (ed. 3), Contingent, happening by chance.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., II. ii. III. (1651), 258. Columbus did not find out America by chance, but God directed him … it was contingent to him, but necessary to God.
1677. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., I. iii. 78. The production of mixt Bodies either by spontaneous or contingent coalition of various particles of Matter.
1754. Edwards, Freed. Will, I. iii. 20. Any thing is said to be contingent or to come to pass by Chance or Accident, in the original meaning of such Words, when its Connection with its Causes or Antecedents, according to the establish’d Course of Things, is not discerned.
1799. Kirwan, Geol. Ess., 100. By various local and contingent events.
† 5. Not determined by necessity in regard to action or existence; free. Obs.
1660. R. Coke, Power & Subj., 134. God … by a … foresight or knowledg does often determin necessary effects from contingent causes.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., 3. They suppose that Necessity is inwardly essential to all Agents whatsoever, and that Contingent Liberty is πρᾶγμα άνυπόστατον, a Thing Impossible or Contradictious.
1796. Bp. Watson, Apol. Bible, x. 363. If human actions are not Contingent, what think you of the morality of actions?
† 6. Subject to or at the mercy of accidents; liable to chance and change. Obs.
a. 1703. Burkitt, On N. T., Acts xiv. 20. The breath of the people that contingent judge of good and evil, which rather attend[s] the vain than the virtuous.
1744. Harris, Three Treat., Wks. (1841), 10. Call those things … which are liable to change and motion, contingent natures; and those which are not liable, necessary natures.
1745. De Foe’s Eng. Tradesman, I. xiv. 118. The contingent nature of trade renders every tradesman liable to disaster.
7. Metaph. a. Not of the nature of necessary truth; true only under existing conditions. Contingent matter (in Logic): the subject-matter of a proposition that is not necessarily or universally true.
1588. Fraunce, Lawiers Log., I. ii. 5. Discovering the validitie of everie reason, bee it necessary, wherof cometh science, or contingent, whence proceedeth opinion.
1628. T. Spencer, Logick, 157. A true axiome is Contingent … when it is in such sort true, that it may also at sometime be false.
1656. trans. Hobbes’ Elem. Philos. (1839), 38. A contingent proposition is that, which at one time may be true, at another time false; as every crow is black.
1785. Reid, Int. Powers, II. xx. 329. The truths attested by our senses … are contingent and limited to time and place.
1856. Ferrier, Inst. Metaph., xxii. § 1. 385. The region of contingent truth—of truth, in regard to cognition, which might conceivably have been other than it is.
1877. E. Caird, Philos. Kant, V. 98. Leibnitz draws a wide distinction between contingent and necessary truth, between truths of fact, and truths of reason.
b. That does not exist of itself, but in dependence on something else.
1785. Reid, Int. Powers, VI. i. 414. The judgements we form are either of things necessary, or of things contingent. Ibid. (1788), Act. Powers, I. v. Wks. II. 523/1. Contingent existence is that which depended upon the power, and will of its cause.
1857. Buckle, Civiliz., I. iii. 146. The senses only supply what is finite and contingent.
1877. E. Caird, Philos. Kant, II. xvi. 573. The contingent, in the sense in which that word is applied to objects of experience, means that which has a cause in something other than itself, something which existed previously.
c. Non-essential.
1628. T. Spencer, Logick, 60. It floweth therefrom, not as a Contingent motion, but as a naturall emanation.
a. 1687. Petty, Pol. Arith. (1690), 94. As these Impediments are contingent, so they are also removeable.
1864. Bowen, Logic, i. 8. The Concept is the Intuition stripped of its contingent or unessential attributes.
8. Dependent for its occurrence or character on or upon some prior occurrence or condition.
1613. Salkeld, Treat. Angels, 359. Those things which are altogether contingent and dependent of mans will.
1654. H. L’Estrange, Chas. I. (1655), 89. In things contingent upon free and voluntary agents, all the Devils in hell can but blunder.
1838. De Morgan, Ess. Probab., 51. 1st event; certainly happens, and gives either H or T … 2nd event; does not certainly happen, but is contingent upon the first throw being T.
1875. Stubbs, Const. Hist., II. xvii. 567. The continuance of the aid is made contingent on the continuance of the war.
1875. Lyell, Princ. Geol., II. II. xxix. 129. The phenomena … may be simply an accident contingent on the principal cause of disturbance.
9. Law. Dependent on a pre-contemplated probability: provisionally liable to exist or take effect; conditional; not absolute.
1710. Lond. Gaz., No. 4735/4. Then to Trustees to preserve the Contingent Remainders.
1767. Blackstone, Comm., II. 169. Contingent or executory remainders are where the estate in remainder is limited to take effect, either to a dubious and uncertain person, or upon a dubious and uncertain event; so that the particular estate may chance to be determined, and the remainder never take effect.
1800. Addison, Amer. Law Rep., 33. The debt was contingent, and the contingency had not happened.
1833. Marryat, P. Simple (1863), 191. Still we are not looked upon as actual, but only contingent, inheritors of the title.
1844. Williams, Real Prop. (1877), 263. The general opinion appears to be in favour of the antiquity of contingent remainders.
10. Contingent force: = B. 5 b.
1856. Calcutta Rev., XXVI. March, 556. In 1777 this Contingent force was entirely transferred to the Company.
B. sb.
1. A thing coming by chance, an accident.
1548. R. Hutten, Sum of Diuin., C j b. If God be not the cause of synne, are the contingentes or changinges to be graunted?
1553. S. Cabot, Ordinances, in Hakluyt, Voy. (1589), 261. In such purchases or contingents as shall fortune to any one of them.
1637. Heywood, Dialogues, 300. All contingents brooke with patience.
1743. Lond. & Country Brew., III. (ed. 2), 230. It … keeps the Body safe … against the Putrefaction of hot Airs, Liquids, Earths, or any opposite Contingent.
1788. [see 2].
2. A thing that may or may not happen, a possibility of the future.
1623. Sir E. Digby, in Rushw., Hist. Coll. (1659), I. 132. The eyes of Humane providence cannot see beyond its horizon; It cannot ascertain future Contingents.
1656. Hobbes, Lib. Necess. & Chance (1841), 225. By contingents, I understand all things which may be done and may not be done, may happen or may not happen, by reason of the indetermination or accidental concurrence of the causes.
a. 1711. Ken, Hymnarium, Poet. Wks. 1721, II. 31. Decreed Contingents they remain, Not link’d in any fatal Chain.
1788. Reid, Act. Powers, iv. x. There seems to me to be a great analogy between the prescience of future contingents, and the memory of past contingents.
† 3. An accessory that may or may not be present. Obs.
1770. Langhorne, Plutarch, Cato Major (1879), I. 377/2. He [Cato] considered eloquence as a valuable contingent.
4. A thing contingent or dependent on the existence or occurrence of something else.
a. 1848. R. W. Hamilton, Rew. & Punishm., i. (1853), 62. Reward and punishment are contingents.
5. ‘The proportion that falls to any person upon a division’ (J.). [So in Fr.]
1727. Chambers, Cycl., Contingent is also a term of relation for the quota that falls to any person upon a division. Each prince of Germany, in time of war, is to furnish so many men, so much money, and munition for his contingent.
1775. Burke, Sp. Conc. Amer., Wks. 1842, I. 202. Either … you settle a permanent contingent, which will and must be trifling; and then you have no effectual revenue: or you change the quota at every exigency.
1818. Jas. Mill, Brit. India, I. II. iii. 123. Officers are appointed … for collecting the contingents for the expense of the state.
b. esp. The proportion of troops furnished by each of several contracting powers; a force contributed to form part of an army or navy.
1727. [see prec.].
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., II. 225. The states of the empire must furnish their respective quotas of soldiers, called their contingents.
1799. Wellington, in Gurw., Disp., I. 14. The Nizam’s Contingent as this force was denominated.
1856. Froude, Hist. Eng. (1858), I. v. 383. Henry and Francis had been called upon to furnish a contingent against Solyman.
1867. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), I. vi. 513. Thirty-two ships, probably a new contingent just come from Denmark.
c. transf. and fig. (cf. Contribution.)
1817. Coleridge, Biog. Lit., 219. That my history would add its contingent to the enforcement of one important truth.
1856. Dickens, Ordeal, 22. No cheerful glow came thro’ crimson curtains, as a generous contingent from some warm cosy nest to the bleak, bare, outside night.
1891. Leeds Mercury, 25 May, 5/2. The London contingent of the chorus numbers 2,500.
