[ad. L. fund-us the bottom; also, a piece of land. Cf. FOND sb.
Fund and fond were used indiscriminately in the 17th c.; in the 18th c. fond went out of use. The senses represent those of F. fond, fonds, rather than those of L. fundus.]
† 1. The bottom; in various applications; occas. Phys. = FUNDUS. In the fund (= F. dans le fond, an fond): at bottom. Fund of grass: a low-lying grass-plat. Cf. BOTTOM 4 b. Obs.
1677. Gale, Crt. Gentiles, II. IV. 36. An adventitious joy, which hath no funde or bottome.
1682. H. More, Annot. Glanvill’s Lux O., 18. Objects of Sight, whose chief, if not onely Images, are in the fund of the Eye.
1705. Vanbrugh, Confed., IV. Wks. (Rtldg.), 431/2. In the fund she is the softest, sweetest, gentlest lady breathing.
1709. Brit. Apollo, II. No. 77. 2/1. A Glass-Bubble … fix’d … to the Fund of a Vessel.
1712. J. James, trans. Le Blond’s Gardening, 61. Bowling-Greens, or hollow Funds of Grass.
1737. H. Bracken, Farriery Impr. (1757), II. 281. So that the Wound may be closed in its whole Length, from the Fund to the outward Orifice.
a. 1761. Law, Comf. Weary Pilgr. (1809), 58. This depth is called the center, the fund or bottom of the soul.
† b. A coach-seat. (Cf. F. carrosse à deux fonds.) Obs.
1699. M. Lister, Journ. Paris, 12. The Coaches … of the great Nobility, which are large, have two Seats or Funds.
c. of a medal.
1697. Evelyn, Numismata, vi. 214. Moulding Medals … in case they polish the Fund with any Tool, ’twill then seem to have been trimm’d with more Niceness and Formality than is Genuine.
† 2. Foundation, groundwork, basis; only in immaterial sense; = FOND sb. 1. Upon one’s own fund: on one’s own account. Obs.
1677. Gale, Crt. Gentiles, II. III. 143. A secret desire of Independence … is graven on the very fund of our corrupt nature.
1699. Bentley, Phal., 75. The only Fund for this Conjecture is Hermippus’s Relation of Pythagoras’s Death.
1729. Butler, Serm., Wks. 1874, II. 12. Weak ties indeed, and what may afford fund enough for ridicule.
1745. De Foe’s Eng. Tradesman, Introd. (1841), I. 3. To describe the English or British product, being the fund of its inland trade, whether we mean its produce as the growth of the country, or its manufactures as the labour of her people.
1748. H. Walpole, Corr. (1837), II. cxciii. 239. I took to him for his resemblance to you; but am grown to love him upon his own fund.
3. Source of supply; a permanent stock that can be drawn upon:
† a. of material things. Rarely pl. Obs.
1695. Woodward, Nat. Hist. Earth, I. (1723), 52. The Matter it self [being] restored to its original Fund and Promptuary, the Earth.
1716. R. Cotes, in Phil. Trans., XXXI. 69. For let A B, represent the plane of the Horizon … E F, a fund of Vapours or Exhalations at a considerable height above us.
1725. Wodrow Corr. (1843), III. 231. I know not what funds they have of the papers of those times.
1757. A. Cooper, Distiller, I. xviii. (1760), 79. Nor is this the only Fund of their Brandies.
1793. N. Vansittart, Refl. Propriety Peace, 127. An inexhaustible fund of recruits may be drawn from Hungary.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 757. The northern parts are covered with wood, among which is an inexhaustible fund of large timber.
b. of immaterial things; = FOND sb. 2: sometimes with mixture of sense 2. † Out of one’s own fund [= F. de son propre fonds]: from one’s own stock of knowledge, out of one’s own head.
a. 1704. T. Brown, Wks. (1707), I. II. 81. The translating most of the French letters gave me as much trouble as if I had written them out of my own fund.
1723. De Foe, Col. Jack (1840), 185. Nor had I a fund of religious knowledge to support me in it.
1769. Junius Lett., xvi. 73. There is a fund of good sense in this country, which cannot be deceived.
1770. Langhorne, Plutarch (1879), I. 400/1. Learning … ought not to be considered as mere pastime and an useless fund for talk.
1832. Ht. Martineau, Life in Wilds, vi. 80. When we get such a fund of labour as this at our command.
1863. Mrs. C. Clarke, Shaks. Char., xii. 300. Like many high-spirited women, Beatrice possesses a fund of hidden tenderness beneath her exterior gaiety and sarcasm,—none the less profound from being withheld from casual view, and very seldom allowed to bewray itself.
1877. A. B. Edwards, Up Nile, vi. 134. The Painter has already been up the Nile three times, and brings a fund of experience into the council.
4. a. sing. A stock or sum of money, esp. one set apart for a particular purpose. Cf. FOND sb. 3. Sinking fund: see SINKING vbl. sb.
1694. Massachusetts Law, 27 Oct. A fund for the repayment of all such sums.
1726–7. Swift, Gulliver, I. vi. Or, if that Fund be deficient, it is largely supplied by the Crown.
1764. Goldsm., Trav., 202. And e’en those ills, that round his mansion rise, Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies.
1795. Gentl. Mag., 544/2. The principal projector of the fund for decayed musicians.
1838. Dickens, Nich. Nick., xvi. A small fund raised by the conversion of some spare clothes into ready money.
1868. G. Duff, Pol. Surv., 25. There is a reserve fund, valued at from two to three times the amount of the yearly expenditure.
b. pl. Money at a person’s disposal; pecuniary resources. (To be or put) in funds: in possession of money.
1728. Young, Love Fame, I. (1757), 86.
| By your revenue measure your expence; | |
| And to your funds and acres join your sense. |
1798. in Picton, L’pool Munic. Rec. (1883), II. 225. Your Committee has little doubt of its bringing into the Corporation Funds a sum of money.
1848. Mill, Pol. Econ., I. v. § 2. (1876), 41. Funds which have not yet found an investment.
1849. Thackeray, Pendennis (1885), II. 17. When he had no funds he went on tick.
1873. C. Robinson, N. S. Wales, 93. An additional guarantee from the public funds of one-half the cost of building.
1879. Miss Braddon, Clov. Foot, II. i. 11. When he was in funds he preferred a hansom.
1895. Budd, in Law Times, XCIX. 545/1. With a view to putting the society in funds to pay its out-of-pocket disbursements.
5. † a. sing. A portion of revenue set apart as a security for specified payments. Obs.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. A Staunch Fund, a good Security.
a. 1715. Burnet, Own Time (1734), II. 209. The Parliament went on slowly in fixing the Fund for the Supplies they had voted: They settled a Revenue on the King for Life, for the ordinary expence of the Government, which was called the Civil List.
1726–31. Tindal, Rapin’s Hist. Eng. (1743), II. XVII. 135. Elizabeth required as Preliminaries, a general pardon for the Confederates; that the Towns of the Netherlands should enjoy all their ancient privileges, and the old Alliance between England and Spain be renewed; that some good fund should be assigned her for the payment of what was due from the States, and the forces on both sides be disbanded.
1740. W. Douglass, Disc. Curr. Brit. Plant. Amer., 13. The 500,000l. lately proposed without Fund or Period.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N., V. iii. (1869), II. 513. The first general mortgage or fund, consisting of a prolongation to the first of August 1706, of several different taxes which would have expired within a shorter term.
fig. 1819. J. Marshall, Const. Opin. (1839), 152. Industry, talents and integrity constitute a fund which is as confidently trusted as property itself.
b. The (public) funds: the stock of the national debt, considered as a mode of investment.
(The origin of this sense may perh. be illustrated by phrases like ‘to invest in securities.’)
1714. Steele, Englishman, No. 55, 9 Feb., 353. Methought my Mony chink’d in my pocket, for joy of the Safety of the rest I have in the Funds.
1783. Cowper, Lett., 23 Nov. If he be the happiest man who has least money in the funds.
1809. R. Langford, Introd. Trade, 52. Funds is a general term for money lent to government, and which constitutes the national debt.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, xx. Look what the funds were on the 1st of March.
1875. W. S. Hayward, Love agst. World, ii. 10. He … must have close on a hundred and fifty thousand in the funds.
† 6. In sense of L. fundus: A farm. Obs.–1
1708. Motteux, Rabelais (1737), V. 230. You to your … rural Fund migrate.
7. Printing. = FOUNT2. Also attrib.
1683. [see FOUNT2].
1695. Specimen of Let. to Univ. by Dr. John Fell, 5. Pair of Fund Cases.
1709. Tanner, Lett., 3 Oct., in Hearne, Collect., II. 458. They can have a new fund of Letter from Holland.
8. Comb., fund-holder, one who has money invested in the public funds; so fund-holding ppl. adj.; fund-lord (formed by Cobbett after landlord), a magnate whose position is due to wealth invested in the funds; fund-monger, one who speculates in the public funds; whence fund-mongering vbl. sb.
1797. C. J. Fox, Sp. Assessed Tax Bill, 14 Dec., Sp. (1815), VI. 375. Would you tax the property of the *fund-holder? No, no minister has yet been either blind or abandoned enough to attempt it.
1812. H. Campbell, in Examiner, 25 May, 333/1. In 1688 … the fundholder received about 80 quartern loaves for his pound sterling annuity.
1878. F. Harrison, in Fortn. Rev., Nov., 697. If the Sovereign State borrows money at 3 per cent., it … confers on the fundholder a legal right.
1825. Corbett, Rur. Rides (1830), I. 81. The taxes being, in fact, tripled by Peel’s Bill, the *fundlords increase in riches.
1888. Pall Mall G., 18 April, 3/1. The Rothschild family … those land-absorbing Fund-lords.
1862. N. Y. Tribune, 12 June (Cent. Dict.). Importing that the present civil war has been got up by jobbers, swindlers and *fund-mongers.
1886. N. Amer. Rev., Sept., CXLIII, 210. Thoroughly imbued with its hostility to perpetual debt and *fund-mongering.
